Twitter is killing off 'favorites' and instead wants you to 'like' tweets with hearts
Previously, Twitter let users show they enjoyed a tweet by selecting a star icon. But that's all changing today. Now, you show you liked a tweet by tapping a heart.
Twitter has been testing out this feature for months. Back in June some users of Twitter's Android and iOS apps spotted that it had changed the star icon to a heart. Twitter confirmed at the time that it was only running an experiment.
In the press release, Twitter says a heart is a "universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones." Twitter says a heart is "more expressive" than a favorite, as the graphic below, which shows what the hearts will look like, attempts to indicate:
Twitter is also going to update the Vine app to unify the way likes look. Right now when you like a Vine video you hit a smiley face. But Twitter says that's going to change to a heart, just like the Twitter app. That's going to bring Twitter and Vine in line with video-streaming app Periscope, which uses hearts to show how much people like different streams.