Twitter made one of its worst product decisions in a long time last week when it announced that the service would default to showing the algorithmically served Home feed, with the reverse-chronological Latest feed accessible in a different tab. The modification made it more difficult to view tweets in chronological order. It was first available on iOS and was set to arrive “soon” on Android and the web. Following widespread criticism, Twitter said on Monday that it would return to its previous state.
“We heard you — some of you always want to see latest Tweets first,” Twitter said in a tweet on its support account. “We’ve switched the timeline back and removed the tabbed experience for now while we explore other options.”
Some users shared criticism of the change almost immediately after its March 10th announcement, as the Latest feed is preferred to the Home feed for many. The out-of-sequence Home feed can be perplexing at times, especially for users who rely on Twitter for breaking news updates like as the war in Ukraine. However, in responses to Verge contributing editor Casey Newton, two Twitter executives stated that they will be looking into the issue, and it appears that the initial modification would not be implemented as planned.
“We take feedback seriously, and in this case, we heard the new pinned Home & Latest wasn’t giving you the level of control over your timeline that you want,” Twitter spokesperson Shaokyi Amdo said in a statement to The Verge.
However, based on what the execs said, it seems Twitter may be investigating other possible changes to the timeline in the future. “Giving people choice and control over their Twitter experience is super important,” Twitter’s newly named VP of consumer product, Jay Sullivan, said in a reply to Newton on March 12th. “I’ll be working on this. Stay tuned.” Sullivan added that he was hoping the platform could achieve “a nice balance for all.”
