Microblogging site Twitter has recently announced that it plans to give users the option of seeing their news feeds in reverse chronological order once again.
Back in 2016, the company made the decision to change how it displayed tweets in the user’s timeline, opting to show them the “best” tweets, and used algorithms to detect which tweets it thought the user would want to see based on their likes and previous interactions, as well as popular tweets.
When the change was made, it was greeted with a great deal of criticism from users who wanted to continue to see tweets in real-time in the order they were tweeted.
Now, the company is making a number of changes to give users the option to return the original way of displaying tweets. Furthermore, it plans on testing these changes in the next few weeks, and if these tests are successful, it could be brought back to the platform in the near future.
The Product Lead at Twitter, Kayvon Beykpour has explained that Twitter is making it simpler for its users to control their appearance of their timelines.
It’s current feature of showing the best tweets first has been updated so that it can be switched off, and if this is triggered by a user, they will then be presented with tweets in reverse chronological order. Another feature that regularly appears on the news feed is the “recommended” tweets and “in case you missed it” sections, which can also be turned off.
On Monday, the company put out a series of tweets explaining the situation and that it is acting based on the feedback it had received from users who preferred to have tweets displayed in the unfiltered, chronological way:
6/ Our plan is to eventually replace this setting when the easier-to-access switch described above is available. We’ll keep you updated and are listening to your feedback – let us know what you think!
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 17, 2018
Company CEO, Jack Dorsey has also tweeted about the change and confirmed that it would not show the “in case you missed it” section, nor any tweets that accounts the user follows has liked.
🆕 if you turn off timeline ranking in settings today, you’ll see all the tweets from people you follow in reverse chronological order…no “in case you missed it” or tweets the people you follow “liked”. https://t.co/F9qOg9aC22
— jack⚡️ (@jack) September 18, 2018
Users can alter their settings in the ‘Settings and Privacy’ section of the site, then under ‘Content Preferences’, they can untick the box that says ‘Show me the best Tweets first’.
Twitter also reassured users that it is listening to their feedback and suggestions for the site in order to make the user experience more positive and ensure users keep coming back. This led many users to make suggestions.
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