TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Twitter’s latest feature has angered hundreds of users by making tweets they favourite appear in the timelines of their followers like retweets, as reported by The Guardian.

Favourites are displayed in the official Twitter apps for smartphones as well as the desktop site, allowing followers to see what people are favouriting and replying to, favouriting or retweeting those tweets directly from their timelines.

A favourite is represented by the small star icon next to a tweet and is used by people to show appreciation, to give something a thumbs-up akin to the Facebook “like” or to save a tweet for later.

Conversely a retweet reposts existing tweets from others to the user’s timeline, and is used to rebroadcast something that is notable, although some take it as an endorsement of the point of the retweeted tweet.

Favourites have been described as the “silent retweet”, which up until now has only notified the user who made the original tweet.

The new feature, which has been rolled out for an unknown number of users, has caused anger among those both favouriting tweets and those who are subjected to unwanted favourites from other users inserted into their timelines.

Hundreds of tweets show user anger, with seemingly no positive support for the new feature.

The favourited tweets appear in the same manner as retweets in user timelines.

THE GUARDIAN