Twitter will now show you favorite posts and posts from people you don’t follow

Aug 21, 2014 08:30 GMT  ·  By

Not so long ago, a bunch of users noticed Twitter had begun experimenting with showing tweets people you follow favor on the main timeline. The feat wasn't widespread, so it was assumed Twitter was just performing some tests, nothing serious.

But now it appears this isn't the case. Twitter has updated the definition of “What’s a Twitter timeline” and we can find a new paragraph in there, that goes something like this.

“Additionally, when we identify a Tweet, an account to follow, or other content that’s popular or relevant, we may add it to your timeline. This means you will sometimes see Tweets from accounts you don’t follow. We select each Tweet using a variety of signals, including how popular it is and how people in your network are interacting with it. Our goal is to make your home timeline even more relevant and interesting.”

We should also remind you that a while back Twitter also experimented with the above-mentioned feat, meaning showing tweets from accounts you don’t even follow. A prelude to the read deal.

The change as a shock to a lot of people, who had previously relied on Twitter to see what they wanted to see, not what was “deemed” relevant for them.

With this change, Twitter is taking yet another step towards becoming more like Facebook and this is something that a lot of Twitter enthusiasts don’t view as a positive approach.

They argue that adding content from people you don’t follow and favorite tweets from the ones you do follow will do nothing more than clutter up the timeline.

It appears Twitter has failed to predict all the possible scenarios. For example, users favoring a tweet does not necessarily indicate they think its content is valuable. Actually, a lot of people use the favorite function to bookmark certain tweets they want to read later, nothing more, nothing less.

On its part, Twitter claims it wants to boost up user engagement, but not many see it like this. Sure, in theory showing breaking news and so-called “relevant” content can be considered a good move, but in reality, there’s a growing concern that you’ll be bombarded by things you don’t really need or want in your timeline.

However, as we've seen so many times in the case of Facebook, even as changes are greeted with skepticism and outrage at first, as time passes, users don't leave. Instead, they just get used to the new features and go on with their posting. Twitter probably relies on that too.