Twitter recommends reading articles before sharing them

After joining other social media giants in labeling misleading COVID-19 information by adding links to each coronavirus-related Tweet, leading to a trusted source on the matter, Twitter now continues to encourage its users towards having informed discussions.

Namely, the company wants to encourage its users to read articles before sharing them, as a title rarely tells the entire story. In a recent tweet from Twitter’s support account, the company stated:

In an additional tweet, the company continued by saying it wanted to test ways towards improving the health of a conversation as it begins. Twitter also wanted to check if reminding us to actually read articles before sharing them solely based on their source or title will lead to more informed discussions.

This move is indeed seemingly bound to have a positive effect on the community, as it has been previously documented that a majority of links shared on the Twitter platform are never clicked, suggesting that many users may instead be relying on the information that’s available in a news article’s title alone.

Sunita Saligram, Twitter’s Head of Site Policy has previously told Reuters that the company is “trying to encourage people to rethink before posting because they often are in the heat of the moment and they might say something they regret.”

Source: Phonearena