OK, so I just started using twitter and I'm confused. I have no interest in Justin Beiber, nor does anyone else I follow on Twitter. So why does my home page show Justin Beiber tweets? Or more specifically, why do I see so many tweets from people I'm not following, and none from the people I am following? And the majority of the random tweets are from subjects I'm not even interested in.
-
Do you follow anyone? Do you see "Retweeted by ..." on any of the tweets?– Eight Days of MalaiseCommented Aug 16, 2014 at 13:26
-
I follow some people, but the people that retweet what I'm seeing aren't people I follow. It was like this right from when I first signed up.– Brad MartinCommented Aug 16, 2014 at 13:54
-
What's an example tweet? Maybe it was sponsored, maybe it's part of another experiment.– Eight Days of MalaiseCommented Aug 16, 2014 at 14:06
-
2Can you post a screenshot?– MrWhiteCommented Aug 16, 2014 at 20:53
-
I could possibly be due to the retweets by the people you are following, retweets also show in the timeline.– mbaljeetsinghCommented Aug 18, 2014 at 2:12
|
Show 1 more comment
1 Answer
You may be seeing this as a result of an experiment in user engagement and retention by Twitter, where you see favourited tweets show up as if they were normal tweets and retweets.
Twitter's Retweet Experiment Will Make You Rethink Your Favorites
In its latest effort to engage newbies, Twitter is sharing "favorite" tweets on some accounts as if they are re-tweets.
This should explain why you're seeing tweets from accounts that seemingly have no relation to those you follow since they didn't explicitly retweet them.
You could also be seeing Promoted Tweets, but these will usually be marked as such and show a button where you can "dismiss" it from your timeline. With promoted tweets you can be targeted "against" one of your interests.
For example, if you follow the @BlackFishMovie you may see sponsored tweets coming from @SeaWorld and such actions are only limited to those who can pay.
answered Aug 18, 2014 at 23:46
