Twitter’s New Sorting Method Puts Likes First
X, formerly known as Twitter, now sorts posts by like counts as opposed to the order in which they were posted when users are logged out.
The change was first spotted by 9to5Google.
Posts, formerly called tweets, still appear in chronological order on profiles when you’re logged into the social network. However, once you log out, they are sorted by performance.
Sorting by Likes, Not Views
The platform now sorts posts based on likes instead of views. This means that posts with a higher like count will show up higher in feeds, even if they have fewer views. The new sorting method prioritizes popular posts over newer and recent ones.
This change is quite surprising since your most-liked posts could be from years ago. Additionally, even if you have a pinned post, it won’t appear at the top of your profile feed when logged out, defeating the point of pinning a post.
Possible Reasoning Behind the Change
It’s unknown why X decided to make this change, but one possible reason is that the company believes that showing the most popular posts first to logged out users might encourage them to follow or sign up for the service.
Under Elon Musk’s leadership, X has been making several changes to its platform. Recently, the social network made X Pro (previously known as TweetDeck) accessible only to subscribers. This aligns with their previous announcement that TweetDeck would soon be limited to verified users.
