Twitter has replaced its "favourite" star icon with "like" hearts in a move to make it more user-friendly and not confuse newcomers.

The microbloging site earlier had a star button to "favourite" a tweet but it has gone the Facebook way now as it has been replaced by hearts which is a "like".

Twitter said on its official blog that "hearts" have been introduced to Twitter and Vine on Tuesday to help enhance user experience.

"We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we'll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favourite," announced Twitter

"Starting today, you'll see hearts on Twitter for iOS and Android, twitter.com, TweetDeck, Twitter for Windows 10, and on Tweets across the Internet, as well as on the Vine Android app and website. You'll see them soon on Vine for iOS and Twitter for Mac. Tap the heart and see what happens!" it added.

The microbloging site said that hearts, unlike star, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. It went on to say that people loved the heart in its earlier experiment on Periscope, as it is more expressive and conveys several emotions.