Twitter is finally bringing back the timeline we actually want. Like every other major social network, Twitter introduced an algorithmic timeline back in 2016. The change wasn’t well received by its users at all, even though the platform provided users with the option to (kind of) get the chronological timeline back.

Over the past few years, though, Twitter has been adding a ton of other things to the timeline to mostly help users expand their network and interact more. Most of that wasn’t well received by users, too.

And so, Twitter is now bringing back the chronological timeline. The company announced last night that it’s going to start a new test that will allow users to get the most recent tweets. You will also be able to easily switch to the algorithmic timeline that shows tweets that are “most relevant for you.”  In other words, there will be two different timelines that you can easily switch between: the most relevant tweets (algorithmic), and the latest tweets (chronological).

“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. 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,” the company tweeted, announcing the upcoming changes.

Twitter is also tweaking the “Show the best Tweets first” setting that lets you get a chronological view of your timeline to hide things like “In case you missed it” and “recommended Tweets” when turned off. The change is going to be welcome to many, mainly because these two widgets display tweets from people they probably don’t even know about.

The announced changes will be very welcoming if they are what Twitter is promising here. Algorithmic timelines are mostly quite annoying on every social network, and Twitter is one of the first companies to give users so much control over the timeline. Still, with the company constantly changing things up with algorithms, it’s going to be challenging to get the perfect timeline without any distraction from outside your network.

Tagged with Algorithmic, Twitter