The debate over Elon Musk’s changes to Twitter may have slacked off a bit, but that doesn’t mean the service’s officials aren’t continuing to work on the news. Yes the one just announced for the official iOS client will not leave anyone indifferent.
Starting today and over the next few days, Twitter users on iPhone will have two tabs in the main section: ‘For you’ and ‘Next’. In the first section, which will always appear as the first, we will see the content recommended by the service’s algorithm. In the second we will see the chronology people we follow.
The chronological order, relegated to the background
Show the Tweets you want to see. Starting today on iOS, swipe between tabs to see Recommended Tweets ‘For You’ or Tweets from accounts you ‘Follow’.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 11, 2023
This change replaces the button with the stars emoji that allowed us to switch between a chronology purely chronological and which includes algorithm recommendations. This already had its controversy: those of us who chose the chronological order option saw how from time to time we were dragged back to algorithmic without informing ourselves. Twitter is interested in what we consume what it recommends, not what we want to follow, to scrape off more revenue.
Now with new tabs, We will always have the “For you” section active with the algorithmic order. Yes, it will be easier for us to switch between this tab and the one in chronological order, but we will still have to do so. Constantly. There are already those who ask that this is not the case:
@TwitterSupport @Elon Musk pls let us put “Next” on the left and “Next” on the right. 👍🏻 pic.twitter.com/HpYHDpF3Uh
— Jesse Kramer (@jessekramer_) January 11, 2023
We have no doubt: Musk needs Twitter to generate as much revenue as possible, and forcing the algorithmic order will cause many users to miss the change and continue to scroll through the content displayed. And for those of us who realize the change, it “dooms” us to always switch tabs.
We’ll see what happens with user reception. Remember that you can avoid this by using alternative clients to the official client such as Tweetbot, or by using similar non-profit networks such as Mastodon. Maybe more than one makes decisions.
Imagen | Szabo Viktor
