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Twitter’s experiment to push people to read news articles before sharing them online is coming out of beta to become a permanent feature for all users.
The company began testing the feature in June with Android users in English. Here’s how it works: When you try to retweet an article that you haven’t clicked, Twitter will display a message telling you to read the content first before distributing it.
The goal was to promote “informed discussion” and “healthier conversations,” when Twitter discussions can sometimes arise simply because people refused to fully read an article before commenting on it or sharing it.
On Thursday, Twitter said the beta test showed some promising results. Prompts to “read before retweeting” cause users to link to an article 40 percent more often than before. Users who open articles before retweeting them have also increased by 33 percent.
“Some people didn’t end up RT (retweeting) after opening the article, which is fine! It is better to leave some tweets in drafts, “added the company.
Twitter hasn’t said when the feature will arrive, but expects it to appear soon for all users. To make the reminders less annoying, the company plans to reduce prompts after the first time you encounter them, “because we understand that you receive them,” the company said.
The show comes as the US presidential race heads into its final weeks. In response, Twitter has been trying to add security measures to the platform to prevent misinformation about the elections from going viral. The efforts have also involved cracking down on the QAnon conspiracy theory.
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