Why do I see tweets on my timeline from people I'm not following?

Question

I see alot of people on my timeline that I do follow, and then a random person that I have followers in common with has a tweet show up on my timeline. I'm not following them and I don't want to see their tweets! How do I stop this?

Answer 1

Those are retweets.

Keep in mind:

• If you see a new face in your timeline, it's because someone you follow retweeted something they thought you should see. In the message, you’ll see the picture and username of the original user, who was retweeted by someone you follow. Turn off Retweets for that person if you don’t like what they share.
• Turning Retweets on or off is NOT retroactive, meaning that Retweets from someone you follow will be delivered to your home timeline while the Retweet button for them is green; Retweets will not be delivered while the button is grey.

If a particular account that you follow retweets updates that you don’t want to see in your home timeline, just visit their profile to turn off Retweets from them. Here’s how:

1. Open a user’s mini-profile by clicking their username anywhere on Twitter, or go to their full profile at http://www.twitter.com/username
2. Next to the Following button, click the Retweetsicon as shown below. Grey = OFF, so anything that person retweets won’t show up in your timeline.
3. To turn their Retweets back on, click the button to turn it green. Green = ON.

Important note (Update by Twitter on 9/21/2011): Some users report that even when they've turned off Retweets for a specific user, they still see that user's Retweeted Tweets in their timeline. Our engineers are aware of the issue and are working on a fix. Follow @support for updates on this issue.

Answer 2

I don't think there is a way to do it for all accounts at once, but click on any account that you follow, and click off the green "recycle" button (it will turn white). That will disable the display of any retweets of theirs in your stream.