Twitter Essentials - What You Should Know About X
The terminology, the limits, the ranking and the settings that matter, in one pass for anyone new to X or coming back to it.
Posts and Reposts
X mostly preserved Twitter's mechanics, while altering most of its lexicon. Tweets are now posts. Retweets are reposts. The handle, the mention, the reply, the quote & thread works as they previously did. Character Limits are 280 on Free, and Up to 25K on Premium The blue check mark is no longer an identity verification, it's a paid subscription, on organizations their rich people get a gold one. The old fact-checking system was replaced by Community Notes, which are written by contributors rather than staff. The save function has been simplified to bookmarking, and there is no longer any such distinction as like-and-save.
Compose box displays the number of characters left when you write a post. Any post over 280 characters is considered "long" and always truncated in timelines for Premium users. Replies still come in the same nested form as before, but X highlights replies from both accounts you follow and those who are verified subscribers now. And direct messages are still a standalone thing entirely, and also limited to 10,000 characters. The media limit per post is four images (or one video) at up to 512 megabytes, doubled for Premium users. Polls (which can run for 7 days and offer four options)
The Two Timelines
With Open X, you see two tabs located at the top of the screen, For You and Following. For You is further ranked algorithmically, and incorporates posts from accounts you do not follow depending on what similar users tend to interact with. It also adds paid throughout the posts and key terms. The following is strictly chronological, and shows only accounts you follow. That includes no content from outside your follow list, just reposts and quote posts from those accounts. Scroll between them at the top of the screen on mobile or click the sparkle icon on desktop to swap.
Do you default to For You, since it surfaces recent content but also homes of content that you do not mean? Stay on Following if you want your feed to be clean. Go to Settings → Display and change the default timeline there. For You is always updated and favors frequent visits. Only seeing updates when new posts go live from followed accounts. If you are following a few hundred other accounts, Following will feel swift and vibrant. If you are only following less than fifty, it may feel barren. That is normal.
Lists as the Third Option
Lists Are You Comprehensive and the Closest Thing to Old Twitter Lists give you a chronological feed of accounts you choose. From any profile page, you have the option of creating a list by tapping the three-dot menu and Add or remove from lists. Lists can be created as public or private. Private lists are only visible to you. Public lists show up on your profile for others to follow. Pin a list to your timeline so that it appears as its own tab (next to For You and Following).
To make a list, head to your profile, tap Lists and then the new list icon. Name it and enter accounts. Lists have no follower limit. For ten lists of 50 accounts you then have ten individual chronological feeds. Useful for separating news from personal accounts, work from hobbies or following live events free of noise. lists do not count reposts or promoted things unless you added accounrs that blatantly post them. If you want to get an open experience; lists are the best tool on the platform.
The Settings That Matter Most
The strongest privacy control is Protect your posts under Privacy and safety. With this you also have the ability to share your posts only on approved followers who can see them as long as it is enabled. Followers that already follow you still remain, but new followers need to be approved. That also keeps your posts away from search engines and makes it impossible to retweet. It does not hide your profile name and bio. The top quality-of-life setting on your platform, Muted words (also in this section). Mute selected words, phrases, usernames and hashtags for however long you choose. Muted words hide posts from your timeline, notifications and search results.
Two-factor authentication is found under Security and account access, next to the session and connected-app lists. Activate it using an authenticator app instead of SMS for increased security. The list of connected-apps shows all third-party services associated with your account. If you think that you did not log in for a long time, or at all — Unlink everything you do not recognize, or do not use anymore. From Notifications, you can filter who mentions and replies to you as well how your notifications are received. Default the quality filter is on for you and it removes trash replies but if you want to see everything then turn it off.
What Nobody Tells New Users
Anything you put out there does not go away on its own. In 10 years, the data a stranger can scroll to your first week on the platform and read it as you had no way of knowing. Old posts will not be automatically deleted on Migrations by X. Deleted accounts still leave cached copies in replies and mentions for some time. The platform keeps your entire post history forever unless you do something. Such as responses to accounts that have since gone inactive, posts from jobs you left years ago and views that are no longer your own.
This is somewhat the insight of anyone who has been here a while, at least if you get to it at an inconvenient moment. Downloading your archive, parsing it honestly, and purging what no longer adheres is regular upkeep not harm mitigation. You can download your archive from Settings > Your account. It comes down in a zip file including every post you have ever liked, direct messages you have exchanged and all media files that you ever uploaded. TweetSweep makes reviewing and removing that history a calendar event and a couple of clicks instead of a lost weekend. Set it once and forget it.
How the Algorithm Works
The signals that Xs algorithm uses to rank content include: recency, engagement and recirculation. When you see a post from an account you interact with often get prioritized over a post from an account you follow but never engage with. For You displays viral posts from accounts with which you do not associate based on the engagement surrounding said posts within your network. It also considers media type—the algorithm favors video and image posts over text-only ones. Whoever makes the posts, replies to your own appear at the top of your notification feed.
The algorithm also includes a penalty for links to outside sites, primarily from the platform's assessment of the site quality. As per the company in response to Feedback and complaints: Posts with links sometimes receive lower distribution on For You compared to text-only posts. Quote posts, where you add your commentary before a repost, do even better. Your mute list, block list and report history train the algorithm. The algorithm also picks up from how long you spend looking at a post — if you scroll past quickly the signal is that it is not of interest, however if you stop to read, that signals interest. Private accounts were less amplified by other people using the algorithm since private accounts cannot have their posts circulated to the wider network.