Twitter Is Making Experimental Timeline Changes

Twitter appears to be experimenting with a change to user timelines, leaving some account holders dismayed.

The change means that a user can now see tweets favorited by people they follow, the Verge reports. Some users are also receiving notifications when someone they follow begins to follow a new user.

Previously, a user’s timeline only showed tweets and retweets from other accounts. The change is similar to Facebook’s practice of auto-posting what friends like or have commented on, through the Open Graph app, which connects activity on apps to the Facebook news feed — although the company recently drew back its use of the app in May, Verge reported.

The experimental Twitter change could transform the dynamic of the timeline from a list that users cultivate to one that marks what is most trending on the microblogging platform.

Other recent Twitter experiments have included embedding tweets into tweets, which has been relatively uncontroversial, but a search on Twitter reveals that many users do not welcome the new change.

Some users have joked that they could finally use the mute feature on Twitter — which allows users to make the tweets or retweets of others invisible without blocking them — to drown out the traffic now inundating their timelines.

[The Verge]