The internet has been buzzing angrily after Buzzfeed published a post that indicated that Twitter was moving away from its timeline and towards an algorithm-generated feed next week. That might have been premature.
For months now, it’s been rumoured that Twitter would be shifting their model away from the strict, chronological timeline model that has been its hallmark since its inception and to an algorithm-based model that would filter out what users would see, much like how Facebook has approached their Timeline feature.
The company has recently been derided for several new features, including Moments and changing ‘Favourites’ to ‘Likes’. The internet hasn’t been happy, and have taken to the hashtag #RIPTwitter to voice their disapproval.
In response, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey took to Twitter earlier this afternoon to note that the company isn’t planning on reordering timelines next week as has been reported:
I *love* real-time. We love the live stream. It’s us. And we’re going to continue to refine it to make Twitter feel more, not less, live!
— Jack (@jack) February 6, 2016
It’s comforting that we won’t see an abrupt change next week, but it does look like there are major changes on their way for Twitter users. According to Josh Sternberg, NBC News’ Director of Branded Content, sources have informed him that any algorithms will be strictly opt-in:
Sources at Twitter tell me algorithms are strictly opt in.
— Josh Sternberg (@joshsternberg) February 6, 2016
It certainly appears that the company has been under the gun to change up how things are done: part of that appears to be an option for opting in to an algorithm feed, and it will be interesting to see if they will move forward with plans to eliminate or expand their 140 character limit.
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