New Retweet Feature: Would You Read it or Not?

For all the Android users out there, Twitter will now ask if you want to read an article that is linked on a tweet before you can retweet it.

I did read it, actually 🤔 pic.twitter.com/sqikMwu0pV

— Eric Tendian (@EricTendian) June 10, 2020

A lot of people have been victimized by sketchy article titles that would entice to share an article without actually reading it. Click-bait titles became very popular not only on articles but also on videos because it would capture the interest of the readers.

Sketchy titles are different because once the user sees the title, they would make assumptions immediately and just share it without reading what’s inside.

Does it affect anything? Yes. Most people share or tweet articles that they don’t really understand since they did not even put the effort to read it.

Avoiding Fake News

The Covid-19 pandemic caused a lot of people to panic and in a sense, it boosted the appearance of fake news articles. Twitter decided to minimize the number of fake news being spread on the platform by asking the users to read the article before they retweet it.

However, they are still giving the users a choice. You can read it if you want or you can just ignore and retweet it.

What’s our Take?

It’s a great way to minimize fake news. Although the users can still retweet the article without reading it, they’ve been warned. As you can see in the tweet above, the title of the article doesn’t tell the whole story and most of these titles are click-baits.

If you still insist on retweeting the article without reading it, you have the freedom to do so. However, whatever consequences it may bring, you are a part of it since you’ve retweeted something that you don’t even know.

Final Thoughts

As of now, it is only available for Android, but we are pretty sure that the new feature will be available in iOS in just a few days or weeks.