Secrecy is an integral part of the effectiveness of the system. If you know how the algorithm works, you can find ways to game it. That doesn't make the practice acceptable, but I think it explains the approach.
FWIW, the same secretive approach prevents anyone from knowing why their social media accounts were banned, or how changes to a website will affect their ranking in the search engines. Exposing the underlying algorithms creates an arms race that will lead to even bigger problems.
Hmm, but you can deploy essentially infinite resources for free in arbitrage to exploiting an algorithmic quirk in social media distribution, search engine rankings, etc.
What exactly is the comparable threat model here? It's ridiculous. What are they exploiting, trace amounts of government resources? For one family?
FWIW, the same secretive approach prevents anyone from knowing why their social media accounts were banned, or how changes to a website will affect their ranking in the search engines. Exposing the underlying algorithms creates an arms race that will lead to even bigger problems.