Twitter may soon advise you on who to unfollow
Most of today's big time services have personalized suggestions that show you what content you might like based on your previous choices. However, as far as I know, there isn't one to show you what you will dislike. Well, it seems that Twitter aims to change that as the micro-blogging platform has recently tested out an algorithm that can determine who you might want to unfollow. At the moment, it is uncertain when and if the feature will start rolling out.
While Twitter hasn't made too many details public, one can infer that the algorithm checks your level of engagement with the users that you follow. It's very likely that most of those whose posts you generally ignore or don't interact with are nothing more than clutter on your timeline, which can become annoying in time. So, it makes sense that the company would like to make it easier for its users to remove unwanted clutter and spend more time with the things they actually like. The test itself has been performed on a fragment of the social network's user base and has already concluded.
As far as I'm concerned, I like the idea as an experiment, especially because it could have an unforeseen side effect: this algorithm could also show you the users who you have been unwillingly ignoring, and whom you might want to dedicate a bit more time to. Additionally, after the Twitter's recent API change and resulting destabilization of numerous third-party clients, it might be a good idea for the social platform to bring some new features to the table.
