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Twitter's Experiment Turning Favourites Into Retweets Annoys Users

Twitter's Experiment Turning Favourites Into Retweets Annoys Users

By NDTV Correspondent | Updated: 18 August 2014 12:08 IST

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Have you recently witnessed favourite tweets back in your tweet box? Some users are seeing tweets favourited by others in their timeline just like retweets.

Some users are seeing a few tweets in their timelines that have been marked as favourites by accounts they follow. Other tweets are showing from accounts that your friends follow.

"Twitter is back in experimental mode, but its latest test is annoying people," said The Next Web, which first noted the little experiment. "A sizeable number of users are seeing tweets favourited by others in their timeline, just like retweets. They are also getting notifications when others follow someone new."

The new experiment by Twitter has left some of its users annoyed, the report added, since favouriting on Twitter is inherently considered a private action, though anyone can see the tweets you have favourited by going to your profile - as long as your account itself is not protected.

Many users do not use the favourite in the same way as a Facebook "Like". Some use it as a simple acknowledgment of receiving a tweet or as a way of saying "thanks", or as a bookmark.

As expected, this new experiment has left many enraged.

Twitter filling my feed with stuff I didn't ask for - stuff other people follow and fav. pic.twitter.com/IVOViGF1QW
-- Peter Kafka (@pkafka) August 17, 2014

Ooh now twitter inserting selected "[person you follow] faved" tweets into main timeline pic.twitter.com/zDhrNseNGs
-- Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) August 16, 2014

.@twitter so you're showing what people favorite on my timeline now? Isn't that what a RT is for?
-- Nathan William (@Treadzone) August 17, 2014

The Next Web reached out to Twitter for a comment, but there was none forthcoming on Sunday. The report noted that the company often responds to such requests by point to a generic blog post from 2013, which says "experiment(s) with features that may never be released to everyone who uses Twitter".

"They help us decide what not to do which is important as we work to keep Twitter simple while improving the user experience."

Written with inputs from IANS

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