Twitter said it would test the functionality “to help promote informed discussion”.
Washington, United States:
Twitter said Wednesday that it is testing a new feature that aims to limit the sharing of articles by users who have not read them.
The feature – which asks users if they have read an article before retweeting it – seems to be aimed at slowing the spread of unverified information.
“Sharing an article can spark a conversation, so you can read it before you tweet it,” said the Twitter support team.
Twitter said it would test the functionality on its Android app “to help promote informed discussion.”
“When you retweet an article you haven’t opened on Twitter, we may ask you if you want to open it first,” the company said.
In a response to a user, Twitter noted, “We wanted to test a way to improve the health of an early conversation.”
But he said that users “will always have the opportunity” to go ahead with retweet.
Twitter and other platforms are struggling to contain the wrong information, which is often transmitted by users who fail to examine the details of the comments they share.
Last month, Twitter decided to limit the scope of some of President Donald Trump’s comments, in one case because they were misleading and in another case due to a violation of the platform’s policies promoting violence.
The president responded angrily and signed an executive decree that could remove some protections from the legal liability of social media companies, although it is unclear whether the measure can be enforced.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
