This is something presumably everyone has learned by now: If you're looking for up-to-date news on Ferguson, you don't look at Facebook. This is because Facebook's timeline is nowhere near chronological. In fact, their algorithm seems to care even less about chronological order now than it did at any time in Facebook's history. My feed is now heavy with the ice bucket challenge and people promoting events that have already happened.

More than Facebook—hell, more than cable news—Twitter has become the go-to source for Ferguson news, because it's unedited, it's from the people or news sources you choose and, most importantly, it runs in chronological order. So people like The Atlantic's Robinson Meyer are upset about this news:

Earlier this week, I was flicking through my Twitter timeline and found something odd: a tweet from a user I’d never seen before. A small line of text above the tweet informed me that it was there because a friend of mine favorited it.

This new feature seems a big deal, because it alters the central conceit of Twitter. Right now, users only only see tweets from users you follow. This is seemingly the feature that made Twitter Twitter.

Of course, this isn't strictly true: Unless they purposefully opt out, users also see retweets from Twitter users that they follow, so this move is just making the favorite option more like the retweet option. Which, don't get me wrong, is pretty dumb! The Twitter favorite is right now kind of like the Facebook Like: A nod of approval, a high five. People will be less likely to favorite a post if they know it may show up in other people's feeds at random. But the public sharing of favorites is not The End of Twitter As We Know It because it doesn't interfere with that strict chronological order. It's more like Another Sign That Twitter Maybe Doesn't Understand What Makes Twitter So Valuable to Everyone.

Something people who don't use Twitter should know is that you can view lists without joining Twitter. There are plenty of lists of journalists in Ferguson right now, and you can check on them for free. I have yet to see a better, more timely, or more reliable source for information on Ferguson than Twitter. Facebook, however, remains the world's best source of people splashing themselves with ice water for charity.