To stop misinformation from going viral during the election, Twitter is going to temporarily encourage users to think before retweeting a post.
Normally, when you want to retweet something, it’s practically a mindless click. But starting on Oct. 20, when you click retweet, you’ll instead be sent to the “Quote Tweet” composer first, enabling you to add your own commentary before amplifying the post.
“Though this adds some extra friction for those who simply want to Retweet, we hope it will encourage everyone to not only consider why they are amplifying a Tweet, but also increase the likelihood that people add their own thoughts, reactions and perspectives to the conversation,” the company wrote in a blog post on Friday.
If you still only want to retweet a post, sans your commentary, all you have to do is click “Retweet” again in the composer window. “We will begin testing this change on Twitter.com for some people beginning today,” the company added.
The change is part of several measures Twitter announced today to prevent the social media platform from becoming a cesspool of false claims as Election Day nears. The plan includes flagging tweets prematurely calling an election win for a candidate with a misinformation label, and referring users who see the content to Twitter’s official election page.
"People on Twitter, including candidates for office, may not claim an election win before it is authoritatively called," the company said. "To determine the results of an election in the US, we require either an announcement from state election officials, or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls."
In the same blog post, Twitter also says it’s going to tone down its recommendation algorithms—a tacit admission that those same systems can help misinformation go viral, and encourage users to see it. “We will prevent ‘liked by’ and ‘followed by’ recommendations from people you don’t follow from showing up in your timeline and won’t send notifications for these Tweets,” the company said.
The recommendations are designed to help you find content you might not be aware of. But ironically, Twitter said: "We don’t believe the 'Like' button provides sufficient, thoughtful consideration prior to amplifying Tweets."
“Finally, we will only surface Trends in the 'For You' tab in the United States that include additional context. That means there will be a description Tweet or article that represents or summarizes why that term is trending,’ the company added.
The changes will last until the end of the election week in the US when Twitter will assess whether it’s necessary to keep them in place.