Is Twitter’s new For You page made to break echo chambers? | Digit

Twitter is now going to change how users can move between the reverse chronological timeline and the algorithmically-driven timeline. It will be making the algorithmic timeline the default view for users. Now, there will be two tabs, one with a label saying “For You”, and the other saying “Following”. One the app is opened, the For You tab will be displayed first. Users can switch between the two tabs as they like. 

“The “For you” and “Following” tabs replace “Home” and “Latest” and will be pinned to the top of your timeline so you can easily switch between them. Swipe to switch timelines instead of tapping the ✨ icon.” said Twitter Support. 

Why is this change taking place?

Elon Musk had tweeted that the Main timeline should allow for an easy sideways swipe between top, latest, trending, and topics that you follow,” and also said that Twitter would be “making this change soon.” The splitting of content into two tabs seems to be an extension of this thought. 

The idea would be that users can see more Tweets not just from those they follow, but also from the broader universe of the app. Perhaps this will be useful in breaking echo chambers – as long as the algorithm doesn’t prioritise showing only the type of content that the user is prone to interact with. If so, it’s going to just create two large echo chambers in two tabs. 

When will this change rollout? 

The change is already available for those who use Twitter on iOS. There’s no indication when it will be available on Android devices. 

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