Twitter Users Condemn Company’s Decision to Ditch Chronological Tweets

Twitter is one of the most popular forms of online communication due to the 140 character limit which allows users to discuss topics in a very quick manner. Additionally, the retweet system means it’s easy to share stories, and other entertaining content. Twitter relies on a chronological order so the end-user can scroll through each tweet and catch up with anything they’ve missed. In direct contrast to Facebook, Twitter offers a more streamlined user-interface and it’s always been my preferred method of social media interaction. However, the company has been making some bizarre decisions of late including replacing the favourite button with a like/heart icon. I’m still baffled why they went to the trouble of implementing this, and it really hasn’t altered the overall experience.

Furthermore, Buzzfeed reports that Twitter is now going to list tweets in a non-chronological order and arrange them based on the reckons it predicts you want to read. As a result, popular accounts will have their tweets heavily promoted which is bound to make the UI extremely cluttered. This has caused widespread outrage from Twitter users who voiced their viewpoint via the hashtag #RIPTwitter. Many have compared the revised Twitter to Facebook and initial reports suggest the changes could be brought in as early as next week! Here we can see a brief snapshot of the reception so far:

In a short space of time, #RIPTwitter has already become the hottest trending topic in the US, and I’m guessing it won’t take long before it’s the number one throughout the world. Clearly, Twitter’s management is obsessed with promoting Tweets from celebrities and trying to move beyond the service’s basic premise. This really is a shame because Twitter has the potential to bring like-minded people together. Unless there’s some kind of change in management, I cannot see this ending well. Maybe, the widespread outrage will make them reconsider the situation, but I’m not hopeful.