Twitter is expanding the recommended tweets for all users, including people who have managed to avoid them so far.
In a statement, the company said:
“We want everyone on Twitter to see the best content on the platform, so we’re expanding recommendations for all users, including those who haven’t seen them in the past.”
Twitter links to a September blog post that explains how recommendations work.
In short, recommendations are algorithmically selected tweets from accounts you don’t follow.
By using recommended tweets along with other content in the main feed, Twitter helps users find other accounts they might be interested in.
This change doesn’t necessarily mean that people who have seen recommended tweets will start seeing more of them.
Twitter’s message emphasizes this update applies to people who have not yet seen the recommended tweets.
However, real users are reporting an increase in recommended tweets. Some are even getting recommendations in their notification tab.
If you don’t like the recommended tweets or see too many, you can switch to the timeline feed and avoid them entirely.
The above ratio of tweets will give you an idea of the consensus on recommendations and the lack of options to cancel them.
The vocal contingent of Twitter users would prefer to see more relevant recommendations or have more ways to turn them off.
You can customize your recommendations by clicking on the three-dot icon next to individual tweets.
From there, you can say you’re “not interested in this tweet,” or go one step further and disable the account so Twitter doesn’t recommend it to you again.
It’s admittedly a cumbersome way to improve Twitter’s recommendation system, but it’s the only alternative to switching to ‘Recent Tweets.