Back in August, Twitter began calling retweets with comments Quote Tweets, and a couple of months later the social media platform changed the way retweets worked so that users were prompted to Quote Tweet a retweet first before deciding to share it.
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Users didn't have to type anything in the quote tweet prompt, and could still retweet with no added context. Still, the idea behind the small change was to encourage more thoughtful amplification of tweets, so that users didn't just mindlessly retweet something without due consideration.
However, it turns out that the tweak didn't have the intended effect, as Twitter explained on Wednesday in a blog post.
We hoped this change would encourage thoughtful amplification and also increase the likelihood that people would add their own thoughts, reactions and perspectives to the conversation. However, we observed that prompting Quote Tweets didn't appear to increase context: 45% of additional Quote Tweets included just a single word and 70% contained less than 25 characters.
Twitter said it also saw a 20% decrease in retweets and quote tweets while the automatic quote tweet prompt was active. As a result, Twitter is reverting the retweet action to its original behavior, and users will no longer see the Quote Tweet prompt when they tap the Retweet button.
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That sounds like a positive result to me. Requiring users to put slightly more thought into a retweet resulted in less mindless re-tweeting?Twitter said it also saw a 20% decrease in retweets and quote tweets while the automatic quote tweet prompt was active.
Indeed, and the bigger picture is they’re talking about a private company that has no power to force anyone to do anything. There’s no Twitter Goon Squad who came to their house and forced them to (sign up for a Twitter account and) tweet specific things that they disagree with. Too many seem to think that Twitter is some sort of government-run public utility. It’s not.How exactly is encouraging people to add their own thoughts to a quote they are sharing “stifling” their speech or “forcing them to speak in a way that they disagree with”?
If Twitter wanted to establish a new rule that, say, no one could post any new tweets that contained vowels, that’s entirely within Twitter’s rights - it might be a very unpopular decision, but it wouldn’t be an illegal one, and it wouldn’t be “Twitter forcing people to post only consonants”, it would be “people choosing to continue using Twitter and posting consonant-only tweets after Twitter enacts new rule”.
It feels sometimes like those who crow the loudest about capitalism and free enterprise and others being snowflakes, don’t really believe in what they've been spouting, the moment it affects them.
This is a case of Twitter getting exactly the effect they wanted, then realizing they don't want it.Twitter said it also saw a 20% decrease in retweets and quote tweets while the automatic quote tweet prompt was active.
Or maybe I'm not being cynical enough. Maybe they just wanted it during the US election.
Almost word for word what I was about to say.How exactly is encouraging people to add their own thoughts to a quote they are sharing “stifling” their speech or “forcing them to speak in a way that they disagree with”?