A few days ago former president Barack Obama sent a tweet that moved many people, after the Charlottesville violence . In fact this tweet is now retweeted 1.2 million times, and liked 2.7 million times, making it the most liked tweet of all times. The tweet by @arianagrande after the deadly bombing after her Manchester concert in May this year has now moved to the second spot.
Interestingly the top-10 of most liked tweets of all times is completely dominated by former president Obama with 6 of the most liked tweets sent by him, either through his @barackobama account or through his (now) @potus44 account. The number 10 spot is for @hilaryclinton.
When compiling a top-10 of most liked tweets, one has to keep in mind that Twitter started promoting likes of tweets only in November 2015. Until that time people could like posts on Instagram and on Facebook, an action that is widely used by users of those platforms. Twitter did not have an equivalent action, although Twitter had a “favorite” button for tweets people found interesting, and wanted to be able to retrieve for later reading or sharing. Essentially Twitter has just renamed this feature to likes, since the functionality has not changed. However due to the familiarity with likes on other platforms, likes on twitter have also become more popular, which means that tweets after November 2015 will have relatively more likes than tweets from before the change from favorites to likes. It is now very common that tweets get more likes than retweets, while before November 2015 tweets would typically get more retweets than likes.
The top-10 list of most liked tweets of all times at this moment is as follows:
1. Barack Obama
2. Ariana Grande
3. Ellen DeGeneres
4. Barack Obama
5. Barack Obama
6. Barack Obama
7. Barack Obama
8. Linkin park
9. Barack Obama
10. Hillary Clinton
