Twitter will now show tweets from people you DON'T follow

Twitter recently began adding tweets to your timeline that have been favorited by people you follow. The decision has been a controversial one, but it looks like it’s here to stay. Twitter has now formally changed its definition of your home timeline to note that it will add in content that it thinks you’ll want to see.

The new feature has been confirmed today on Twitter's support page after users first reported the appearance of content from other accounts last week, with many believing it was just an experiment.
Normally, a user's Twitter timeline is filled by posts from accounts the user follows, as well as retweets from those accounts. But this has now changed, as the site's support page explained.

The company has added a paragraph saying that “when we identify a Tweet, an account to follow, or other content that’s popular or relevant, we may add it to your timeline. This means you will sometimes see Tweets from accounts you don’t follow. We select each Tweet using a variety of signals, including how popular it is and how people in your network are interacting with it. Our goal is to make your home timeline even more relevant and interesting."

A number of users had expressed their displeasure after Twitter started experimenting with the feature, last week. The reason behind this resistance is that the 'favorite' feature is not as widely used by users. The feature is treated as a simple acknowledgment of receiving a tweet or as a way of saying 'thanks.'It's also a simple way of saying that a user found something funny. Many users also use it as a type of bookmarking system.