Since the takover of Twitter by Elon Musk changes have been coming thick and fast. Some, such as Twitter Blue, have been well reported and endlessly debated. Others, such as the change to the timeline, less so. It is the latter that I am going to concentrate on today.
Twitter has long tried to encourage behaviour that it wants rather than what the consumer might want. This means pushing tweets from people that you might not follow but others you follow do, in the hope that you will build your own followers. The problem with this is that you end up with a whole load of tweets that are potentially less relevant to you.
You used to be able to click a tiny, starry, button on the interface that put your tweets in timeline order rather than the curious order Twitter would choose for you. No longer, as this button has gone.
There is, however, a way to restore some sanity to your Twitter feed. At the top (at least on web and iOS) two tabs called “For You” and “Following”. By default the former is selected and will be full of the stuff that Twitter wants you to see. Switch to Following and you will see just those you had elected to see and some form of normality will ensue.
It’s not clear how long the Following tab remains selected and it does switch back at some point so be on your guard!