One major change that X, previously Twitter, has gotten ever since Elon Musk became its owner is that “verified” (i.e.: paid) accounts will have their posts pushed to the top of people’s feed, as well as in replies to other posts. That’s probably not the best way to get unbiased opinions, especially as the platform also started its revenue sharing with the very same paid users. Now, it looks like the platform is giving back the average user a bit more control, with the option to sort replies to a certain degree.
The feature looks to have been rolled out over the weekend, with the official X account making the announcement on its own platform. The options according to the accompanying screenshot include sorting replies by the most recent, most liked, as well as most relevant. On web and iOS, these are indeed the options that appear, but on Android, the “most relevant replies” option is replaced with one that simply reads “trending”.
Of the three options, most liked and most recent are pretty self explanatory. That being said, X has not shared its definition of what qualifies as either most relevant, or indeed trending. One can argue that despite the different wording on Android, the “trending” option does the same thing as what the platform considers “most relevant”. And what it considers to be most relevant may simply mean the current system of having the replies of paid posters at the top.
rolling out now: sort replies on any post by most relevant, recent, or liked pic.twitter.com/bBjaRliUxZ
— X (@X) August 9, 2024
While having more defined sorting options is a good thing, it’s worth noting that whenever you jump to a new thread, the sorting option goes back to the default. Which happens to be the one undefined option of the three, so you’ll have to manually change it to one of the two each time you read a post on X.
(Source: X)
