Twitter has made its algorithmic timeline, for a moment, default. The decision was quickly reversed after criticism.
Short messaging has been experimenting since 2015 with an algorithmic timeline, which should show users the ‘most important’ tweets. That feed posts tweets based on what the algorithm thinks you like, including repeating popular posts and tweets that others have ‘liked’.
And users have been against it for so long. So back in 2016, the company had to backtrack on a decision to use the algorithmic timeline as opposed to a classic chronological one, which simply lists the tweets of people you follow, with the most recent at the top.
Twitter will try that again in 2022. Last week, the company turned on the algorithmic suggestions by default on iOS and was immediately criticized so much that it dropped the experiment after a few days. A system that does not use chronology would, among other things, make it very difficult to keep up with rapidly changing news events, such as currently in Ukraine.
However, the company doesn’t seem to be giving up completely just yet. “We hear you; some of you always want to see the latest tweets first,” Twitter said in a tweet, promising it will continue to look for other options.
