Twitter to Prompt Users to Actually Read Articles Before Retweeting

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TwitterTwitter will soon start asking its users to click on a link to an article to read them before retweeting them. This has naturally come up because the trend of retweeting and reacting to an article title is not new on Twitter.

According to a tweet by Twitter support, the social media platform is now testing a prompt on its Android app such that when you retweet an article you haven’t opened on Twitter, you may be asked if you’d like to open it first.

Here’s how it looks:

This recent announcement was received with mixed reactions.

Obviously journalists and writers would top the list of those who praise the idea, while regular Twitter users are split between admiring the ‘bold’ move and spelling doom for the social network.

This is Twitter’s latest effort to fight misinformation especially in curbing viral clicky bait articles from going viral.

The company recently started labelling false and or misleading tweets especially from US President Donald Trump and other tweets that link 5G with coronavirus.

The prompt will be based on clickthrough and not time spent on page. This test will run for at least a few weeks to get enough data to make an informed decision on next steps.

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