Twitter continues its fight against misinformation and falsehood with a new feature that prompts users to read and verify articles before Retweeting it. The platform has not revealed when to expect its latest feature.
Keeping up with micro-blogging site, Twitter, is a full-time job. The platform keeps getting new features and does this as regular as clockwork. Its most recent feature will be aimed at stopping people from spreading misinformation; especially those without the intention of doing so.
Twitter understands that many people are taken in by headlines and may retweet articles with misleading headlines; thus, helping to promote falsehood. This new feature will put this in check by asking users if they will like to read the article first before sharing. It will achieve this via an automatic prompt, activated by Twitter’s powerful algorithm.
What the algorithm will do is to identify when a particular user has not opened the link to an article on the platform and is trying to Retweet the article. In announcing the new feature, the company Tweeted:
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Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it.
To help promote informed discussion, we’re testing a new prompt on Android –– when you Retweet an article that you haven’t opened on Twitter, we may ask if you’d like to open it first.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) June 10, 2020
There were mixed reactions to this announcement as some favoured it while others found fault with it. One user had commented that the platform was playing ‘god’ and accused it of tracking their activities online. Twitter’s support department, which made the announcement, clarified the issue.
It said:
“For this experiment, if you tap to Retweet an article link, we’ll check if you’ve recently clicked the article link only on Twitter, not elsewhere.
“When you see the prompt, you’ll always have the option to go ahead and Retweet.”
Thus, in order not to see the prompt, when the feature becomes active, you must have read the articles via its Twitter link before Retweeting them. Even if you have read the article on another browser, you will still see the prompt.
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