Twitter has announced that it is working on bringing the ‘read the article before you retweet it’ prompt to all users, soon. The company began testing the prompt in June 2020.
The link will show up when Twitter users try to retweet an article link that they haven’t clicked on yet. The company says it is promoting the feature so as to ‘help promote informed discussion’.
Misleading headlines can actively misdirect and derail a conversation. Making people read what they are about to tweet can help to stop some of the impulse reactions, combat misinformation, and promote literacy.
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The company posted findings from its testing the product in June 2020. It found that people opened articles 40% more often after seeing the prompt, thus promoting reading. It also discovered that more people opened articles before retweeting, leading to more informed conversations.
We shouldn’t have to say this, but you should read an article before you Tweet it. https://t.co/Apr9vZb2iI
So, we’ve been prompting some people to do exactly that. Here’s what we’ve learned so far. ⤵️
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) September 24, 2020
The company says it’s working on bringing these prompts to everyone globally. Twitter also adds that the new prompt will be smaller when it’s been shown to users once, “because we get that you get it”, it wrote.
Twitter is also testing a feature that warns users before they send offensive replies. It rolled out a feature earlier in the year that limit who can reply a tweet, thus reducing trolls and offensive behaviour.
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