Twitter has restored its traditional retweet functionality after months-long experiment to limit the spread of misinformation on the platform ahead of the US election last month.
Whether the misinformation lessened or not, the sharing of tweets certainly came down (probably because people were reluctant to add a commentary or something to an existing tweet). Twitter said it is returning to one-click retweets, after seeing a 20% decrease in sharing following the change.
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Back to square one
After learning from this product experience, we’re sharing an update: today Retweet functionality will be returning to the way it was before.Here's what we saw while we prompted Quote Tweets (1/4): https://t.co/MzoDKy3d69December 16, 2020
Retweet functionality will be returning to the way it was before, Twitter announced.
Quote tweets instead of retweets was intended to encourage thoughtful amplification, but that has not happened in practice. The use of Quote Tweets increased, but 45% of them included single-word affirmations and 70% had less than 25 characters, Twitter Support said in a tweet.
"We'll continue to focus on encouraging more thoughtful amplification," Twitter added.
"This requires multiple solutions -- some of which may be more effective than others. For example, we know that prompting you to read articles leads to more informed sharing.”
Twitter now adds labels to certain tweets if they contain misleading information about major topics.
And as it happened, the IT cell head of India's ruling party, the BJP, has bagged the dubious distinction of being the first Indian to get flagged for such an indiscretion.
In Twitter terms, "manipulated media" is used to refer to an audio-visual piece of content which has been “significantly and deceptively altered or fabricated.”
Twitter also says it's working with third-party experts to properly address issues of dehumanizing speech on the platform, and to better understand more complex issues, such as conversations within protected marginalized groups, including those using reclaimed terminology that could be picked up by the automated process.
