Twitter testing home button to switch tweet order

Twitter is testing a home-screen button to help its 326 million users switch the order of the tweets they see, the social network announced on Thursday.

The micro-blogging platform said a small number of iOS users will soon see a button on the home screen that allows them to switch between a display of tweets.

"Sometimes you want to see the latest Tweets, first. We're testing a way for you to make it easier to switch your timeline between the latest and top Tweets.

"Starting Thursday, a small number of you will see this test on iOS," tweeted the company.

The feature is currently available on the iOS but will come to Android too.

Giving its over million users more control, Twitter in September announced that it would completely revert their timeline into a pure reverse chronological feed.

The micro-blogging platform in 2016 announced that it will only show "most important tweets" and stop the most recent tweets first which irked many users.

It announced that in the coming weeks, it will start testing a "way to switch between a timeline of tweets that are most relevant for you and a timeline of the latest tweets".

"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," said Twitter.

"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," it added.

Twitter has also confirmed it was considering removing the heart-shaped 'Like' button after its CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that he was not a fan and would be getting rid of it "soon".

--IANS

na/in