Twitter To Bring Back Chronological Timeline For Recent Tweets

Twitter has refused to bring back chronological timelines for a long time, but now it looks like the company has changed its mind. The social networking platform has announced that it will soon provide users more control on what they see on their timeline, including the ability to view tweets in chronological order.

Twitter currently shows tweets on the timeline based on what’s relevant and useful to users. In Twitter’s settings, there’s an option to turn on “show the best tweets first,” which also includes tweets in the “in case you missed it” section of the timeline. There are also recommended tweets that pop up on the timeline from other people that users may not be following. Twitter said that it has learned a lot with these features, but it has also heard feedback from users who still want to see the most recent tweets.

“Twitter helps you see what’s happening by showing the best Tweets for you based on your interactions. We’ve learned that when showing the best Tweets first, people find Twitter more relevant and useful. However, we've heard feedback from people who at times prefer to see the most recent Tweets,” the company stated on the Twitter Support page.

“Our goal with the timeline is to balance showing you the most recent Tweets with the best Tweets you’re likely to care about, but we don’t always get this balance right. So, we’re working on providing you with an easily accessible way to switch between a timeline of Tweets that are most relevant for you and a timeline of the latest Tweets. You’ll see us test this in the coming weeks.”

Twitter isn’t the only social media platform that has received criticism over algorithm-based feeds. Instagram once had a reverse chronological order for posts, but now it shows photos and videos based on the users’ interactions in the app. Twitter may have decided to bring back a chronological timeline to please its user base, which has been dwindling for some time now.

Twitter didn’t provide any specific information on when users will have the option to bring back chronological tweets to the timeline, but it did bring an update to its “Show the best tweets first” setting. When this feature is turned off, users will see tweets from people they follow in reverse chronological order, according to Mashable.

Twitter said that it plans to completely replace the "Show the best tweets first” setting with a more convenient toggle that will allow users to easily switch between algorithm-based and chronological Twitter timelines.