Twitter replaced its Favorite star with a Like heart in 2015.
For years, Twitter users marked posts with a star and called the action a Favorite. On November 3, 2015, Twitter changed the icon to a heart and renamed the action Like. The company said the heart was more familiar across social media and easier for users to understand, especially on Periscope, Vine, and other products associated with the company.
The change also altered the language of interaction. A user no longer “favorited” a tweet; they “liked” it. Twitter applied the heart system across its mobile applications and website, while the underlying purpose remained similar: signaling appreciation, saving a post for later reference, or participating in engagement metrics.
The change is sometimes confused with later redesigns and ownership-era rebranding. Twitter became X in 2023, but the star-to-heart change happened eight years earlier. The year 2016 relates to other Twitter product changes, not the replacement of Favorites.