For better or worse, Twitter’s Stars and Favorites are now Hearts and Likes

Twitter hearts

So you’ve been starring and favoriting tweets for later use in your favorite Twitter client, just like many other die-hard Twitter fans do? Well, starting today all those Stars and Favorites shall be presented henceforth as Hearts and Likes, the micro-blogging startup unexpectedly announced today.

The rebranding effort is meant to permit Twitter fans to show how they feel on Twitter “without missing a beat,” but already the change seems to have drawn ire and ridicule from hardcore fans of the service.

Common expressive language for Twitter’s community

“We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes,” said Twitter. Hearts will be coming to both Twitter and Vine, and they’re already embraced hearts in a big way on Periscope.

Twitter’s rationale is that the star could be confusing to new users. “You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite,” said the company. The heart, on the other hand, is a universally recognized symbol that knows no boundaries.

“The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people,” explains Twitter. “And in our tests, we found that people loved it.”

“I work at Twitter, but even I can’t believe how we replaced a completely value-neutral term like ‘favorite’ with something so loaded,” Peter Seibel wrote on Twitter. Still, Twitter argues that one can say “a lot with with a heart.” Still, if a backlash and puns on Twitter are an indication, many Twitter fans beg to disagree with the company’s stance.

Availability

Whether you like it or not, you’ll be seeing hearts on Twitter for iOS and Android, twitter.com, TweetDeck, Twitter for Windows 10 and on tweets across the Internet starting today. Vine for Android and the Vine website will be getting hearts today as well, with Vine for iOS and Twitter for Mac getting them soon.

Is Twitter’s change of heart ticking you off?

Source: Twitter