Twitter forcing algorithmic timeline with latest update - July 2019

[Todd Krause]

I think the more annoying thing that Twitter does is show me likes/replies from people I don't follow (some of them for good reason) in my timeline like I didn't care to see any of the tweets from the 2000+ I *DO* follow.

There is a way to get rid of this, at least on the web based version. In the upper right of any tweet that has been liked, click on the little arrow. You should see something like "show likes less often" or something to that effect. I had to do that with about 30-40 tweets the first day of the new format, and in the week or so since then, I have had no "liked" tweets cluttering my timeline. Hopefully that will continue.

As an aside, if I haven't used the web based version in a couple days, the timeline seems to revert to showing "top" tweets. But if I'm looking at Twitter more frequently, it seems to maintain the "latest tweet" format.

 

[Bill Hark]

So far, my Twitter feed on my phone is staying on "latest tweets." Early on, they kept switching it back to that "top tweets" but they seem to have stopped. I will be really pissed if forced to top tweets. Reminds me of Facebook where every so-called update degrades the usability of the platform. I've seen the computer version of Twitter a few times but haven't had time to mess with it. Never heard of Twitter lists or groups. I just have the folks that I follow.

 

[John Blank]

I have wondered why twitter is so strange. i'm dropping twitter now that I know this. Thanks for the heads-up

 

[Garrett H.]

I've tried to see new tweets, but they just end up showing me tweets that happened 15-20 hours ago. Which if I were to post critical weather information it just gets negated by the popular tweets instead of new ones.

This leads me to seeing others likes, Twitter has somehow wanted to show me graphic images from a specific user's like rather than what I follow for; which is weather. It seems Twitter is getting worse in terms of highlighting critical information, plus I used to get quite a bit of likes, but now since Twitter's algorithm has changed.. it just drifted off into space. I'm just not as active on twitter as I used to be 1-2 years ago.

-G

 

[Dan Robinson]

I've had two Twitter accounts for years, my main one @stormhighway (which I just deleted) and the other for @icyroadsafety (which I'm keeping for now but have not been active on it).

On the icyroadsafety one, I have been getting the "liked" tweets in my timeline for years. It was switched to algorithmic a long time ago with no option to go back. I always go through and select the "see less like this" thing, but it has never had any effect to this day.

The big thing that social media platforms have embraced is the "keep the user on the app" paradigm, which means no engagement for external links. That pretty much takes any end user benefit out of the picture. Instead of a viral photo generating print sales or a Youtube link generating some income, all monetary benefit is going to the platform now.

These companies have bigger advertising audience value than national television networks, yet they are getting more free content to keep their pockets lined than any TV network ever has. Years ago, you could post a photo or video link and get some traffic in return for the ad revenue you generated for the company. Now,, they've taken that away, and the momentum of everyone maintaining the practice of posting their prized photo and video content directly to the platform is giving them a windfall like no company has ever seen in history. And they share none of it with those who generate it.

 

[Devin Pitts]

With the update, it is still possible to have a chronological timeline. The problem is twitter likes to revert it all the time which is really annoying. There is also a way to remove "liked tweets" from your timeline so that you aren't constantly seeing what everyone you follow likes. If you go to your muted words section in the settings, add these two lines and your timeline will be much less awful:


Just type those in as shown.

 

[Matthew Crowther]

This is dumb, yes. But it is is easy to switch to chronological, and without Twitter I lose seeing a lot of cool weather posts. I use it mostly for monitoring, I do not post myself much.