Twitter will no longer show the quote retweet option as the company is reversing changes that it made its function. Twitter has added the quote retweet feature to help decrease the spread of misinformation online during the height of the US presidential election.
Twitter to go back to normal
The social media company wrote a statement on the platform about its decision to remove the feature. According to Twitter, the use of quote tweets increased but only 45% of the quote retweets had single-word affirmations and 70% of them had less than 25 characters.
Twitter added that the increase in quote tweets was also offset by an overall 20% decrease in sharing through both the retweet option and the quote retweet option. Because of this, the microblogging site will no longer prompt quote retweets from the retweet icon.
In October, Twitter made it difficult for its users to retweet a tweet with misinformation and promoted the use of quote tweets, which then includes commentary from the user.
The company also imposed strict rules such as labelling and removal of tweets that are calling for people to interfere with the election process or the implementation of results. Twitter also puts red flags on tweets that spreads false information regarding the election and COVID-19 claims that are not backed by evidence.
Quote tweets was intended to encourage thoughtful amplifications, but their data does not show that. Thus, the company decided that the retweet functionality will be returning to the way it was before.
Misinformation on social media
Meanwhile, Facebook, another social media giant, has in the past few days reviewed their algorithm that lifted news from outlets over hyperpartisan sources after the presidential election, according to the New York Times.
According to the report, the implementation of Facebook's algorithm decreased the traffic for sites like Breitbart and Occupy Democrats and it increased the traffic for mainstream news publishers.
During the election period, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other social media networks announced the measures that they will take to protect the integrity of the voting process in the United States.
For Twitter, aside from the quote tweet option, the social media app also included warning labels on disputed or misleading claims.
Between October 27 and November 11, Twitter had labeled about 300,000 tweets that contains disputed and potentially misleading information about the US election, according to Forbes.
The stated number represents 0.2% of all the tweet linked to the US presidential election. But the company did not say how that compared to the number of tweets that were labeled before October 27.
Out of the 300,000 labeled tweets, Twitter hid almost 500 behind warnings that users had to click past in order to read.
To reply to those tweets or to be able to share them, the users had to add their own comments, which leads to people thinking before they type. Twitter then removed those types of tweets from recommendation by its algorithms.
Twitter also reported that 74% users who viewed the labeled tweets only saw them after the label was applied to the tweet.
Related Article: How to Use Twitter's New Quote Tweet Feature?
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Sieeka Khan
