Twitter has caught a little bit of flack recently for so-called spamming of members’ timelines with tweets from people the account holder does not follow.
Users of the social network have complained of seeing tweets favourited by people they follow randomly show up in their feeds.
Until now it wasn’t known what was prompting the occurrence, but Twitter’s Dick Costolo has pulled back the social network’s curtain to reveal why.
Costolo says it happens when users refresh their feeds twice in a row and no there are no new tweets to show.
Twitter figures than action is a demand for no tweets, so it is better to give users something it thinks may be relatable to them rather than nothing at all.
In a response to a question from another Twitter user Costolo wrote: “You get favorites when you pull-to-refresh 2x and we have no new tweets from follows both times.”
Another user was granted the reply: “2x request for more content is a strong signal that person wants more content. So the goal is to respond to that well.”
So there you have it, if you’re seeing more tweets from accounts you don’t follow, it’s because you’re so insatiable for new 140-character posts, the social network wants to make sure you get them.
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Via: Engadget
