Your Twitter Timeline Is More Than Just Tweets From People You Follow ⇥ qz.com

Dan Frommer, Quartz:

In addition to the basic, essential definition of a Twitter timeline — “all Tweets from those you have chosen to follow on Twitter” — plus retweets and ads, there’s a new section:

Additionally, when we identify a Tweet, an account to follow, or other content that’s popular or relevant, we may add it to your timeline. This means you will sometimes see Tweets from accounts you don’t follow. We select each Tweet using a variety of signals, including how popular it is and how people in your network are interacting with it. Our goal is to make your home timeline even more relevant and interesting.

In most cases, these seem to be tweets favorited, but not retweeted, by people you follow.

The official Twitter apps and website are becoming increasingly worse; it’s no wonder users are flocking to third-party apps.