Hearts attack: is Twitter trying to kill its users? | Dean Burnett

Twitter recently introduced 'hearts' and 'likes' instead of stars and favourites. Is this seemingly-innocuous change part of an ongoing attempt to wipe out the more dedicated users?

Enthusiastic Twitter users are currently reeling from a huge shift in the way the omnipresent social network functions. The owners and operators of Twitter have introduced a virtual-world altering shift, on a par with the collapse of the Roman Empire in ancient times, or the first demonstration of nuclear weapons in the 20^th century. Understandably, people are shocked, outraged, exasperated, even scared in some cases.

For those of you not on Twitter, what happened is this: until now, if you liked a tweet, you had the option of tagging it as a "favourite", via a little yellow star icon underneath it. Now, this option is gone, taken from us without warning and cast into the endless void never to return, like George Osborne's credibility. Instead of "favourites", you now have to "like" a tweet, and instead of a yellow star, it's a red heart. Obviously, this is an unspeakable outrage, with some proposing "extreme" measures to address it.