Twitter, "Read Full Article Before Retweeting" to Prevent Fake News Spread

Increase in Users Clicking Articles Before Retweets According to Test Results

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] Twitter is pushing forward with measures to prevent the spread of false information such as fake news through retweets.

According to IT media The Verge on the 28th, Twitter is planning to send a prompt message saying "Read the article before retweeting" to all Twitter users.

Twitter has been testing this prompt message since June, and it showed that Twitter users tend to actually try to read the article when they attempt to retweet a story they have not clicked on.

News headlines often do not tell the whole story and can even cause misunderstandings. This measure aims to prevent the spread of false information such as fake news by encouraging Twitter users to decide whether to retweet after reading the article.

Twitter shared the results of the initial test of this feature on Android devices. The test showed a 33% increase in the overall proportion of Twitter users clicking on articles before retweeting.

Twitter stated, "We are working to deliver this prompt to all users worldwide soon." They added, "Once the prompt is shown to a Twitter user once, it will become smaller the next time."

In addition, Twitter plans to implement features that warn users before sending offensive tweets and options to limit who can reply to tweets.