Many people form their opinions by reading only the headlines of articles. Twitter now wants to counteract this – and only lets us post retweets after the social network has encouraged us to read them with a corresponding note.
The attention span on the Internet is infinitesimal, because a lot of information is available to us anytime and anywhere.
Many people no longer even take the time to read an interesting article from beginning to end. Instead, they form an opinion based only on the headline – and thus often get a wrong impression of the actual content.
Twitter animates us to read with difficult retweets
On Twitter this fact makes a big difference. After all, it is the purpose of the social network to retweet and spread foreign content on your own profile.
Of course, misunderstandings and false messages can quickly arise if users read only a lurid headline, for example, but in the actual text they are ultimately presented with completely different arguments and perspectives.
Twitter now reacts with a new function. After a four-month test phase, the platform wants to encourage iOS and Android users worldwide to read more difficult retweets.
Before we can retweet a link to a news page, Twitter now shows us a hint. “A headline doesn’t say it all,” is the message. Twitter has announced the new feature via its own support account.
Links to news pages now only possible with quoted retweet
We then have the opportunity to read the corresponding article on the platform before retweeting it. So Twitter does not force us to open the link, but it makes retweeting more difficult with the hint and another step.
Links to news sites can only be shared with a quoted tweet. This means: Twitter presents us with another hurdle of additional clicks.
However, we don’t necessarily have to enter a text in the comment field. You can also leave the field empty and post the post as a normal retweet. Twitter plays the hint if you haven’t accessed a post via the social network in the last seven days.
So the short message service does not check whether you have previously viewed an article in the app or browser. Under these circumstances, the read request may be a little annoying.
But even then, it still has the advantage of slowing down our Internet usage for a moment.
Twitter takes action against false messages
The new function is intended to contribute to further protection against false messages on the net. On Twitter, the potential for posts and content to go viral through retweets is particularly great.
Of course, the read request does not protect against fake news if corresponding content basically contains rumors, distorted excerpts from news or false reports.
But they do remind us to be careful with our digital possibilities and to take the time to read content carefully instead of rashly sharing it with others.
