author_is_elon, author_is_democrat, and author_is_republican are in fact gone. Now there is grok_politics_neutral, grok_politics_left, and grok_politics_right. This is in addition to a whole group of other categories, such as grok_category_sports and grok_category_music. All are based on annotations by Grok.
Importantly, this file is not used for recommendations. Everything in this file is only used for "metrics tracking purposes to measure how often we serve posts with various attributes." This would also have applied to author_is_elon.
The fact that this issue still exists at all and that the variables have been improved to some degree seems pretty awesome? There was actually no need for this repo to exist in the first place anyways.
(Not a critique of the post itself but I couldn't find a better place to criticize "automatic anti-Elon sentiment which prevails across the board).
author_is_elon
author_is_power_user
author_is_democrat
author_is_republican
Wow.
This is political targeting. This guy was one of the biggest political donors, how can this fly?
The people left on twitter earnestly believe that it is better now that you can shout racial slurs at people, buy your way to the top of any chain, get literally paid for ragebait, and genuinely think this repo is meaningful.
It's a massive self selection bias.
The system is rigged. Haven't you noticed yet?
https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/7f90d0ca342b92...
When this started it really put me off X - I'd have tolerated, and almost liked the idea, of a freedom of speeech place. But a place that boosts its owners posts... Nope.
I'm out - it's such a big personal diss of me, I'm not interested any more.
https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/issues/236