New Twitter Experiment Irks Users

The Twitter Inc. logo is shown with the U.S. flag. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Twitter has recently introduced a new feature on the social networking site, displaying who users follow and the posts that users marked as favorite. But Twitter users around the world are not happy and impressed by what they consider as unnecessary update.

Like Us on Facebook

Twitter has long been known for experimenting with different features in its mobile apps and on its website but the latest experiment failed to get the users' nod.

In fact, many users have tweeted about how bad the new feature is because they can now see posted directly to their main Twitter timeline tweets that users they follow marked as favorite.

Retweets allow users to republic posts that they find interesting but favorites are rather private and might not necessarily appeal the followers' tastes.

The new Twitter experiment irked not just the millions of Twitter followers but also the celebrities who have millions of followers.

Gosh Groban, for instance, tweeted 'Twitter why are you showing me postings I don't follow and weren't retweeted. Stop that.

Hunter Walker (@hunterwalk) also tweeted 'Ooh now twitter inserting selected '[person you follow] faved' tweets into main timeline.'

But analysts said Twitter might have introduced the latest tweak in order to encourage more engagement among its users.

Twitter needs more and more people to engage on the site and it believes that when users see what those they follow have favorited, they could check it out and then circulate.

Sources said the experiment actually started several weeks ago with select users and it came as a surprise that despite complaints, the company continues to expand the experiment to more users.

Twitter has not issued a statement about its latest experiment and its official Twitter blog (blog.twitter.com) did not mention anything about the latest update.