I'm not sure how it works but it works in such a way to frustrate me. I rarely see the tweets of those I follow. Instead I see the ones they liked, I see the tweets of others that follow them, I see tweets of others who are similar to them.
I see the tweets of everyone BUT the ones I follow. Hence I have a chrome plug in that cleans up their junk into a usable state.
That is a very handy and unfortunately hidden feature. I just enabled it, and even knowing the feature exist I had to Google to know I need to tap that funky icon on mobile.
Unfortunately for Twitter I will keep using the browser plug-in which also hides their ads (maybe they get paid for the display, even if hidden)
2. I also prefer to add people to lists rather than following them.
So on Tweetdeck I have multiple columns open at once, the first column is the people I follow (Tweetdeck presents them in chronological order, no messing about with similar users or liked tweets) and the rest of my columns are my lists. (F1, MotoGP, NBA, Space/Rocketry, Tech).
I mainly use Twitter on PC but whenever I use it on mobile it's to look through my lists. The timeline is pretty much useless on all apps.
I see the tweets of everyone BUT the ones I follow. Hence I have a chrome plug in that cleans up their junk into a usable state.