In a new update, Twitter announced that they will be expanding the recommended tweets to ensure everyone on seeing the best content on the platform. This means that even if you don't follow a certain person, some of their tweets will show up on your timeline.
Recommended Tweets
Twitter will bring newly updated recommended tweets to everyone. Based on Twitter's announcement on their blog, this move from the app is for them to deliver the best content on the platform to everyone, even users that they do not follow. The tweets that will show up on the users' timelines will base on their algorithm.
"We want to ensure everyone on Twitter sees the best content on the platform, so we're expanding recommendations to all users, including those who may not have seen them in the past," Twitter stated.
As per Social Media Today, recommended tweets will be based on things like interests based on tweet activity, followed topics, engaged tweets, network tweets, and tweets from mutual followers. Through these signals, Twitter will show users content that they might be interested in.
Recommended tweets will be appearing in some sections of the app, including the Home timeline, Explore tab, and elsewhere on Twitter.
Twitter ended the announcement by saying, "We'll continue working to improve the way you discover timely and interesting content on Twitter, and we'll keep sharing our progress with you along the way."
Managing Recommendations
In order for Twitter to provide the best content to their users, they have provided tools to control the recommendations and clear ways on what the users want and do not want to see on their timelines.
This includes the sparkle icon on the upper right corner of the timeline, which can be used for opting for the 'For You' Tweets that will include the recommendations from people they don't follow and potential topics they might like or 'Latest' tweets that don't have the recommended content.
Twitter will also be signaled with the users' liked and retweeted tweets.
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This is not the first time Twitter to experiment with adding more suggested content. In fact, Engadget reported that Twitter has been pushing this type of algorithm into the app for years now.
Algorithmic Content
Twitter will be the latest application to join the algorithmic content, as they follow the steps of Meta in joining this trend with Facebook and Instagram. As per The Verge, this stems from Tiktok which has a 'For You Page' that focuses more on relevant content to each user on the platform.
Current Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has not talked about the platform's recommendation algorithms. Although in May, he previously stated that Twitter's timeline was hard to fix the feed.
He added, "You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don't realize. Meanwhile, there are still no statements from Musk regarding this new update.
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