Twitter Rolls Out View Counts for Tweets on iOS, Android

Inno Flores, Tech Times 23 December 2022, 12:12 am

Elon Musk announced a roll out for a new feature. Twitter will now show view counts for every tweet on iOS and Android and will soon be available on the web. This feature is similar to what YouTube shows on its platform regarding how many times a video has been watched.

(Photo : CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)
In this illustration photo taken on July 18, 2022 Elon Musk's reply Tweet to Parag Agrawal, the CEO of Twitter, showing a poop emoji is displayed on the screen of a smartphone with Musk Twitter page in the background in Los Angeles.

Twitter View Counts

Twitter will now have view counts for tweets that will be visible to everyone on the platform. Based on a report from The Verge, it is now available for iOS and Android. Twitter Chief Elon Musk announced the rollout of the feature on his account.

Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video.

Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2022

Musk stated that this feature proves that 90% of the platform's users prefer reading rather than tweeting, replying, liking, or any interaction that will notify the other user.

The view counts are visible alongside the number of comments, retweets, and likes. As per Twitter FAQ, tweets from Twitter Circle and Community will not have a visible view count. Based on Nima Owji's observation, the data will only be visible to the tweets that were posted after December 15th.

"Anyone who views your Tweet counts as a view, regardless of where they see your Tweet or whether or not they follow you. Even an author looking at their own Tweet counts as a view," Twitter stated.

Announcement of the Feature

This feature was announced by the CEO on December 1st. He stated that the company was trying to make the platform's text and image posts similar to video posts with public view counts. Through this, it will show how alive the platform is since replies do not give the public eye the full picture.

This will also encourage users on the platform to add their voices to the "public dialogue." Musk said that interactions are becoming lesser and lesser, as users are getting zero likes and replies to their engagements. Adding to this is that people who read tweets outnumber people who like, retweet, and reply by a thousand percent.

TechCrunch reported that analytics are already present on the platform ever since then. The difference between the two is that this new feature will be visible to everyone and not just the owner of the account.

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View counts were also rumored to roll out even before Musk became the CEO of the company. Last September, the company planned to make this feature go public by default to test its improvement.

But several users thought that this idea will not help the users, as it will make them anxious. MakeUseOf reported that through this feature, Twitter consumers will feel like they are being exposed to the public too much.

For Twitter's side, they see View Counts as a motivation for people how influential and widespread the platform is. This will also allow high-profile brands to consider using the platform, as it can show more accurate public analytics data.