No Twitter, I do not like

January 15, 2023 3:51 PM

Try as I might to find an answer, I am stumped as to how to stop "you might like" from showing up in my Twitter timeline.

I have googled everything I can find to see if it is possible to stop the incessant "you might like" from polluting the timeline. None of what I have tried has worked. The only thing I have found that works is to individually mute or block each "suggestion". As soon as I refresh more appear. The problem seems to have gotten dramatically worse in the past few days. Maybe there isn't a way to accomplish this. Maybe this is what Elon wants.

posted by jtexman1 to Technology (13 answers total)

Phone or desktop version? I can tell you that at least on an iPhone there seems to be no way to get rid of the dumb “for you” list that appeared a few days ago, which is where the “you might like” stuff appears. It constantly hops back to there no matter how much I want it to never, ever do that.
posted by charmedimsure at 3:55 PM on January 15, 2023

Response by poster: Sorry, this is desktop.
posted by jtexman1 at 4:02 PM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

In the past, I've had success with blocking Every Single Suggestion as I encounter it, no exceptions and I never look at anything before blocking, I just block indiscrminately. In my case it only takes a few days for the algorithm to recognise that I will block everything unsolicited. I know it works because if I switch to a different/new device I have to start blocking all over again.

That said, I've read more and more tweets describing your experience recently, and also it seems the 'latest tweets' button has vanished. Might just herald the beginning of a total system failure.

Additional info - not sure if it's relevant but I run AdBlock, ublock origin and facebook container in Firefox (where I use twitter - laptop). And I am an unprolific tweeter with few followers.
posted by lulu68 at 4:47 PM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

In your browser (Chrome or Firefox) there is this 'Tweak New Twitter' addon that is superb and allows heavy customisation of what you see in Twitter.

On a smartphone you can block these very powerful search terms to weed out a whole series of things from your timeline. Then change the way it is organised to 'latest tweets' layout and you shouldn't see any more 'you might like' posts. More on how to do this here.
posted by 0bvious at 4:54 PM on January 15, 2023 [5 favorites]

On Desktop, if you go to the top of your timeline, there should be two options available - "For You" and "Following." Make sure your timeline is set to "Following," and you should only get Tweets from people you follow (caveat: Twitter seems to be changing by the day).

Sometimes when you reload Twitter, it may switch back to "For You," which it considers the default for some reason, so every once in a while you may have to check and make sure your timeline is still set to "Following."
posted by kingoftonga86 at 4:54 PM on January 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

There used to be some little gold stars where you could click and switch to a chronological, following-only timeline, but this recently changed names to the somewhat confusingly named "Following" button that kingoftonga86 mentioned. If they ever take this away from us, you can just use Tweetdeck which is also chronological with no suggestions.
posted by acidic at 5:00 PM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

I use Lists to make sure I only see chronological posts from accounts I follow.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:05 PM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

At least for now, tweetdeck.twitter.com is still working and it avoids a lot of the new Musk awfulness.
posted by Mid at 5:48 PM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Select “Following” at the top of the timeline. That’s the reverse chronological feed of tweets from people you follow. No more suggestions.

“For you” (the other option) is the algorithmic timeline. This is the same algorithmic timeline as pre-Musk, but the recommendations are worse because the people who are still posting on Twitter are worse.
posted by caek at 5:58 PM on January 15, 2023

As of a couple of days ago half the posts made by people I follow are only available in the (algorithmic) "For you" timeline - where they are mixed in with posts from anti-vaxxers and people with Greek statue profile pics.
Elon really hates that site.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:19 PM on January 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Suggestions (and ads) do not show up in Lists.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:57 AM on January 16, 2023

There has never been a better time to abandon Twitter entirely. Moderation is all-Nazis, third party APIs are broken, mentions are broken, timeline is broken. Whatever might have once been of value there, isn't, and there's no sane reason to believe it will get anything but worse.

Run, fast and far. Any heading, so long as you maintain it.
posted by sourcequench at 6:11 PM on January 16, 2023

YMMV, but here are my uBlock Origin rules for twitter:

twitter.com##a:xpath(//a[@href="/i/bookmarks"])
twitter.com##a:xpath(//a[@href="/i/twitter_blue_sign_up"])
twitter.com##a:xpath(//a[@href="/explore"])
twitter.com##a:xpath(//a[@href="/compose/tweet"])
twitter.com##h1:xpath(//h1[text()="Trending now"]/../../../..)
twitter.com##aside:xpath(//aside[@aria-label="Who to follow"]/../..)
twitter.com##a:xpath(//a[@href="https://twitter.com/tos"]/..)
twitter.com##h1:xpath(//h2[text()="Follow some Topics"]/../../../..)
twitter.com##h1:xpath(//h2[text()="Expand your timeline with Topics"]/../../../..)
twitter.com##li[data-suggestion-json*="ActivityTweet"]
twitter.com##[data-testid="tweet"]:has-text(/Promoted$/)

It gets rid of the right-hand column several buttons on the left, and all ads. It also breaks the ability to quote tweet, so if I want to do so I have to turn uBO off for a moment to do that.
posted by tclark at 8:28 PM on January 17, 2023