Yeah, Twitter's watching you even when you're not tweeting

You don't have to push a button to send a signal. Services like Twitter keep tabs on your behavior even if you aren't prodding your touchscreen to "like" or "retweet" things, and they use all that precious data to serve you #content that's tailor-made to attract your eyeballs.

As Slate's Will Oremus explains in a new feature about Twitter's algorithms, the company pays attention to a variety of cues from its users to deliver information using its "best tweets" and "in case you missed it" functions. A lot of this is expected—you're more likely to see tweets that are recent and frequently retweeted, or from an author you engage with a lot — but one element should catch your eye: "How much time you spend reading tweets by that author, even if you don’t engage." Read more...