Once upon a time, the Twitter timeline only showed posts from the people you follow. Then it started displaying tweets your friends liked, and recommendations for people to follow, and a 'What you missed' section, and tweets your friends replied to, and so on. This has led me to use Mastodon more and more, since there are no algorithms or recommendations on that platform, but most of the people I know are still on Twitter.

Thankfully, there is an easy way to turn off all the annoying 'features' that clutter up your timeline. Twitter added the ability to mute certain words or phrases last year, and by adding certain strings as muted words, you can now hide all of Twitter's suggested content.

The process is simple. In the Twitter app, open the side menu and press 'Settings and privacy.' Then press 'Privacy and safety,' and select 'Muted words.' This is where you'll enter each of the below strings as muted words (and make sure 'Home timeline' is checked):

  • suggest_recap
  • suggest_who_to_follow
  • suggest_activity
  • suggest_activity_tweet
  • suggest_recycled_tweet_inline
  • suggest_recycled_tweet
  • suggest_grouped_tweet_hashtag

After that, you should stop seeing all tweet and account recommendations on the timeline. Since muted words are saved to your account, this change will take effect across all your devices. If you're on a desktop computer, this process can also be done on twitter.com.