Twitter Makes It Harder To Choose the Old Reverse-Chronological Feed (theverge.com) 29
Twitter is rolling out a change that, frustratingly, makes it a bit more difficult to see your chronological feed. From a report: The design change, which lets you swipe between your Home (algorithmically served) and Latest (reverse chronological) timelines, was announced Thursday. To set it up, you tap the sparkle icon in the top right corner, and you'll see the option to pin your "Latest timeline," and if you select that, you'll see both "Home" and "Latest Tweets" tabs at the top of the iOS app. If you use pinned lists on the iOS app, the layout might look familiar. The feature is available first on iOS, and it's coming "soon" to Android and the web, Twitter says. To my great disappointment, however, I've found that after testing the feature, now I can't make the chronological feed the default. Instead, I can only have Home as my default or set up the two Home and Latest Tweets tabs and swap between them as needed.
Of course they did (Score:2)
It's harder to present the most outage-inducing tweets first if you're able to default to reverse chronological order. Twatter wants to presents the most corner-rocking and mouth-foaming content by default, because that means more "engagement" and therefore more money.
Social media is a poison that can't die fast enough.
Re: (Score:1)
outage-inducing tweets
I think we used to call that slashdotting...but when was the last time that happened?
Re: (Score:2)
But for the most part I took a step back and asked myself, "How much of my life am I spending watching other people live theirs?" The 'engagement' was far too much, coupled with their 'force feed(ing)s' of content that I couldn't care less about, finally made me realize that I wasn't living like I want
Re: (Score:2)
Twatter wants to presents the most corner-rocking and mouth-foaming content by default, because that means more "engagement" and therefore more money.
If we still have a functioning society left after social media age, I am all for public executions of tech execs that knew the consequences and decided to do it anyways.
Re: Of course they did (Score:2)
Tools are manufactured. People use them to build all sorts of nasty stuff that kills people. When the tool age is over, we need to execute everyone at Craftsman and Harbor Freight.
(Of course, if the SM execs were using a neutral medium to push their own adgenda and manipulate the political narrative, then public executions may be in order)
Re: (Score:2)
"(Of course, if the SM execs were using a neutral medium to push their own adgenda and manipulate the political narrative, then public executions may be in order)"
I am convinced that the Meta and Twitter executives have no agenda other than profit. The problem is, they found that profit lies in abetting the destruction of sane political discourse. So that's what they did, not because they are trying to push any particular political objective, but solely to rake in the bucks to be made from it.
They now also require javascript. (Score:2)
And Twitter no longer functions at all if you don't have Javascript enabled, because of course they need that sweet sweet tracking and ad cash.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. And until recently you could still switch to the simple UI. And now you can't anymore.
dark patterns (Score:2)
When tech companies hire psychologists as "user experience" experts. They can start producing new ways to manipulate people in how they access their site.
Don't like being manipulated? Then leave.
Like being manipulated? ... freak
Re: (Score:2)
Try working in the gaming industry for a few years and I don't mean video gaming either.
Psychologists have been working to keep you addicted to things that separate you from your money for decades, we just call it gambling.
Re: (Score:2)
We did it when I worked at a DSL modem company 20+ years ago. I never said this was a new trend. And again when I worked on Pachinko machines. That of course is an old art, much older than the current lootbox gaming industry.
The casino-like methodology to trap users into a game experience is well documented and there is a plethora of research papers on the topic.
But just because we understand what is happening and where it came from doesn't make it any less evil.
Twitter Setting Saver (Score:3)
I use an extension called "Twitter Setting Saver" which keeps my feeds on "recent".
Has been working great!
Re: (Score:2)
What about in its iOS app? :(
Why do these fuckers always hide chronological? (Score:2)
To me it is absolute nonsense the degree of difficulty it has become to simply see a chronological version of a timeline. I only follow a select group of people for a reason, anyone I'm actually following I want to see what they have to say.
I think they would be better served dropping all of there recommended post nonsense which never works at all, and instead let you have people that you follow and read, and people that you follow just as a wider group where maybe you could ask to see random or selected p
Re: (Score:2)
Because their UX "experts" are idiots. Form at the expense of Function.
Open social networks (Score:2)
And that would be why I use twitter through a plugin for an actual open social network, Friendica. I only see posts from my contacts (no promoted content) and in chronological order. I have never understood why one would leave the ordering and inclusion of posts in your feed to a for-profit company. It's basically tantamount to giving them control of your mind.
And yes, I realize that if everyone did this, twitter would go out of business. But it also demonstrates that their basic function (a short mes
Delete Your Account (Score:2)
One of the best life decisions I've made recently was quitting twitter. I removed my Twitter client from my phone and turned all notifications off for two weeks, five-ish years ago, because I was going to be on vacation and doing a lot of traveling.
By the end of the first week, I was surprised at how much time I had to read books and talk to my actual family. By the end of the second week, I was surprised at how much calmer my life was when I wasn't reading an endless stream of outrage (and typically outrag
Re: (Score:1)
I deleted my Twitter and Facebook accounts a bit more than five years ago. Not looking back.
Not surprising (Score:2)
The ultimate goal of all software companies whether the anti-social ones such as Twitter or the general ones such as Microsoft, is to make doing things, and especially customization, as difficult and frustrating as possible. This is demonstrated most effectively by Microsoft and its insistent on either removing items completely, or burying them in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The last thing they want is for an end user to have something simple, neat, and clean to operate. Instead, the user
Use a third party client (Score:2)
Pay for a third party client. Tweetbot is something like $6/year, you can get a chronological timeline, and you never see any ads. I have a list as my main feed, not my timeline, because sometimes I want to follow people but not consistently see their tweets. My experience is well curated, well worth a few bucks a year.
Shitter gets crappier? News at 11 (Score:2)
n/t
Why? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Because they think that their algorithms can detect the tweets that are most likely to get people to "engage" and that by limiting what people see to those tweets, they can get people to use the site longer and see more ads. And presumably they've done the A/B tests to prove that it works.
I'm not convinced that's a long term solution. Facebook use is dying off as the platform has turned from a site you go to see what your friends are up to into a site that shows you random clickbait crap designed to trick y
Tweetdeck (Score:2)
If you must use Twitter, use Tweetdeck. Fully customizable and no ads or "AI" deciding what you should see. Set the swimlanes to what's relevant for you.