Twitter's Algorithmic 'For You' Feed Becomes Default Timeline on iOS

[amartinez1660]

This is not new and the swiping is all wrong. The best iOS Twitter swipe gesture I have suggested to use since the very beginnings: double tap on that home button, swipe Twitter away from RAM existence. And nowadays swipe from the very bottom of the phone upwards and also swipe that Twitter crap away from existence.

I don't use Twitter and this move already draws my ire. These algorithm, catering to user interests, will start a vicious cycle that leads users into an echo chamber. This is how Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers and other nutjobs gained such a large voice.

This is also the reason FaceBook sucks. MySpace never lead users around, never tempted them into echo chambers.

Let them!
It’s less competition for you and me. It’s akin to overeating or overspending on needless stuff… when dire times rear its ugly head, those will be slower to react both physically and financially, giving both you and me a head start by doing absolutely nothing.

Same for this: hours and hours throwing tantrums and blaming everybody else for their own faults, instead of learning a new craft, going to the gym, or heck; just sit, relax and reflect to the tune of a calming playlist.

Not gonna lie, I do like the fireworks of this all, but only because it gives me fuel and motivation to run away from it.

 

[stevet]

When you give up Twitter you should not replace it. Just giving it up is a net benefit to your personal self worth. Instead just read more books.

I don’t have a,problem with twitter. I follow people/companies that I want to follow and engage with them without a problem. I’m starting the think the people that are making the most noise about twitters problems, may actually be the problem.

 

[Halver_Rook]

Imagine using Twitter lol.

 

[svish]

Don't like this change.

 

[and 1989 others]

TikTok, Twitter and all the other so-called social networks are such a disaster in the making. This is so bad, people don't even have the brain cells anymore to realize what these platforms have done to our society.

Siloing people to the point they can't even communicate properly with others, boosting engagement with reward mechanics so much it becomes an addiction, serving curated content that only pleases the reader so they end up denying simple facts and the reality, chronic depression, sexuality disorders, self-confidence crushed (everyone seems to live a better life than me), attention span reduced to that of a goldfish...

This is becoming more and more like a Clockwork Orange dystopia. The only difference is it comes with the consent of the public.

Even the ones driving these monsters have become slaves to their own product.

I'm sorry for the rant, but I'm tired seeing news like that. The issue here is not the homepage of the Twitter app. It's Twitter itself.

As long as people do not realize we would all live so much better without these tools, things will continue to worsen. Public infrastructures desecrated by mobs, unique art pieces destroyed forever, violence and abuses, trust issues with your loved ones up to the people you elected... It's that bad. And all these issues can be rooted in the mob mentality, poor culture, disinformation, misunderstandings and hate incitation driven by these networks. Why? Because that's the optimal way to increase engagement which turns into money, the sole and unique metric used to evaluate the benefit of these "social" platforms.

I'll close this rant by saying just this: we're running out of time. I'm from last generation before the digital natives, but soon there won't be anyone anymore who knows a world without this cancer has existed and it was much happier.

Absolutely agree. Just before reaching your own comment I was thinking this is an ENTIRELY self induced 'Problem'.

Twitter reminds me of watching my young niece's and Nephews playing 'Family' when they were infants. All assigned ficticious roles and creating 'problems' they play out with each other, but never reaching a resolution because everybody knew better. Then it would be dinner time and it was as if nothing had happened. Except twitter is for adults, and they can't leave their issues online.

Social media is a pernicious tumorous-growth of the mind, the best way to get back to a healthy mindset is to cut it out.

 

[Reason077]

Why anybody uses the official app instead of something like Hootsuite, Tweetbot, Twitterrific or Fenyx I will never know.

Elon will probably block those soon enough. Hard to serve ads to someone else's app.

 

[bransoj]

I don’t have a,problem with twitter. I follow people/companies that I want to follow and engage with them without a problem. I’m starting the think the people that are making the most noise about twitters problems, may actually be the problem.

I'm the same and follow accounts i want to get information or hear from. I used to get those in a chronological order with the latest at the top the moment i opened it and was fine with that. However now i have to mess about getting to see those and initially get stuff i'm not bothered about. All the algorithms in the world can have a guess as to what i want to see but in the end its me that knows best.

 

[NEPOBABY]

Elon will probably block those soon enough. Hard to serve ads to someone else's app.

Please let’s call him by his smelly sounding last name and not by his first name.

He’s not our friend. Even his brother and ex-wife unfollowed him this week.

 

[russell_314]

I occasionally check Twitter now mainly because of so many people talking about it, so I want to see what's going on. I just think it's funny how some of the people are wound up about it and they probably never use Twitter. It's kind of boring to be honest.

I would much rather have a chronological timeline, then some sort of suggested timeline but it seems like every social media is pushing that because it's what pays the bills. Perhaps he needs to make it part of the upgraded subscription plan if you want the chronological timeline. I might even throw a few bucks at Facebook if they offer that feature. I know that's pretty scary.

 

[gank41]

I've seen a few posts here about Mastodon, calling it complex & complicated... And at the moment, I'd agree with you and also disagree with you. I've been on Mastodon since 2018 (wow, that's 5 years already!) and actively using it and seeing it's growth and change (for the better).

Twitter & Mastodon are only tools, and I know I'll get a lot of groans here, but Facebook is a "Social Media Platform" in that they want you to stay on their service for everything, and then they want you to spend all your money on things for sale on their site. Stay there forever, in fact, live there in VR now, too.

Twitter started out much like Facebook (and MySpace) did in that there was just a long thread of posts. A 'Feed' of people posting things. Facebook has turned that into a major life sucking business. Twitter & Mastodon, though, are still basically those same posts in a Feed (I'm being Generic, obvs). Twitter just hasn't figured out how to make money off of this, yet... And Mastodon has zero ads. There's no cynical mastermind billionaire barking orders randomly at servants. It's just the people on there.

For those saying it's complex, sure is! Servers? Instances (another name for Server, in a generic way)? What now?? Calgon take me away, right? Well, consider Twitter as being an "instance", and now you're just using a different "Instance" when you sign up on one of the many Mastodon servers out there. BUT, once you do sign up, and even if you use an app like Ivory and Tweetbot, you quite literally cannot tell the difference between the two at first glance. And the more people I've been following on Twitter that have fled for Mastodon, the better & better it's getting over there. Another plus is that a lot of the Mastodon apps are now including better sign up processes.

Looking at this Beginner's Guide dating back to 2017, in hindsight, Mastodon is what we should have been doing all along. It's not controlled by one single person. It's still a tool we all can use to hyper-curate a list of followers for whatever you're looking for, quite literally the same as Twitter.

I've compared Twitter to Coruscant and Mastodon as the Rebellion scattered all over the Galaxy. Seems to hold up in my mind.

 

[Abazigal]

Why anybody uses the official app instead of something like Hootsuite, Tweetbot, Twitterrific or Fenyx I will never know.

Third party apps are not without their limitations. For example, Tweetbot has no algorithmic timeline, doesn't let you do polls, and you can't initiate a DM with someone (though if you have messaged them before, you can continue the conversation inside the app). I consider this a bonus for me though, since I really just want to be able to view my tweets in order, without distracting ads getting in my way.

 

[gank41]

Third party apps are not without their limitations. For example, Tweetbot has no algorithmic timeline, doesn't let you do polls, and you can't initiate a DM with someone (though if you have messaged them before, you can continue the conversation inside the app). I consider this a bonus for me though, since I really just want to be able to view my tweets in order, without distracting ads getting in my way.

You can initiate a direct message with anyone, regardless of whether you have or haven’t before, by tapping the gear icon ⚙️ in the top right



And yeah, having no algorithmic timeline is fantastic. I just want everything in order, and without ads or promoted tweets. Tweetbot and other 3rd party apps provide that, for now.

Who knows how long there’ll even be “better” 3rd party apps.

 

[Abazigal]

You can initiate a direct message with anyone, regardless of whether you have or haven’t before, by tapping the gear icon ⚙️ in the top right

Okay, that works now. I could have sworn that wasn't the case many years back, when I wanted to DM somebody on Twitter, couldn't do it via Tweetbot, and so had to download and (re)install the twitter app just for this.

 

[Hicksmat1976]

this sucks.

 

[NEPOBABY]

this sucks.

Can’t even order searches by Latest anymore so it is impossible to see a trend early and identify breaking news and incidents.

A decision like that can only be made by a person like this…..

 

[compwiz1202]

It's the same kind of change that started Facebook's downfall too. All I ever wanted was just a chronological list of posts by people I give a **** about. That's it. I'm sick of all this curated algorithm driven ********.

Yea I remember it happening on FB and having to figure out how to fix it.

 

[compwiz1202]

This is not new and the swiping is all wrong. The best iOS Twitter swipe gesture I have suggested to use since the very beginnings: double tap on that home button, swipe Twitter away from RAM existence. And nowadays swipe from the very bottom of the phone upwards and also swipe that Twitter crap away from existence.


Let them!
It’s less competition for you and me. It’s akin to overeating or overspending on needless stuff… when dire times rear its ugly head, those will be slower to react both physically and financially, giving both you and me a head start by doing absolutely nothing.

Same for this: hours and hours throwing tantrums and blaming everybody else for their own faults, instead of learning a new craft, going to the gym, or heck; just sit, relax and reflect to the tune of a calming playlist.

Not gonna lie, I do like the fireworks of this all, but only because it gives me fuel and motivation to run away from it.

Better is hold down on Twitter Icon Delete Delete Yes

 

[Bustycat]

Better renew my Tweetbot subcription then.

Breaking news: Lots of third-party clients like Tweetbot can’t access Twitter now.

 

[tosbsas]

Looks like the killed the api for external
Apps. Tweetbot can’t Connect Right now

 

[tosbsas]

Why anybody uses the official app instead of something like Hootsuite, Tweetbot, Twitterrific or Fenyx I will never know.

Because as of now you are locked out. Api has been changed or killed

 

[Bustycat]

Looks like the killed the api for external
Apps. Tweetbot can’t Connect Right now

Precisely, only clients. You can check your connected apps on the Twitter website and only clients like Tweetbot are gone.

 

[tosbsas]

Tweetbot and other clients are experiencing problems logging in to Twitter. We’ve reached out to Twitter for more details, but haven’t heard back.

We’re hoping this is just a temporary glitch and will let you know more as soon as we know more.

 

[Abazigal]

Breaking news: Lots of third-party clients like Tweetbot can’t access Twitter now.

So it's not just me. How ironic that I was just trumpeting said app not so long ago.

 

[gank41]

What's weird is that while apps like Tweetbot & Twitteriffic aren't working, the 3rd party app Aviary IS still working. I'd only assume the dev for Aviary is doing something not allowed by Twitter's API for it to still fetch tokens and work... Maybe we'll get lucky and other 3rd party Twitter apps will go rogue and "fix" the problem. Although I just went looking for the App Store link to Aviary and don't see it on the app store! The plot thickens lol

 

[tosbsas]

What's weird is that while apps like Tweetbot & Twitteriffic aren't working, the 3rd party app Aviary IS still working. I'd only assume the dev for Aviary is doing something not allowed by Twitter's API for it to still fetch tokens and work... Maybe we'll get lucky and other 3rd party Twitter apps will go rogue and "fix" the problem. Although I just went looking for the App Store link to Aviary and don't see it on the app store! The plot thickens lol

I just Downloaded it. Its Aviary 2 now. 3 day trial After That its 10,49€ a year. Thats almost doble of Tweetbot. Hmm