Twitter has reinstated the classic Retweet following mixed responses to the newly launched feature that prioritised Quote Tweets.
After learning from this product experience, we’re sharing an update: today Retweet functionality will be returning to the way it was before.
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Here's what we saw while we prompted Quote Tweets (1/4): https://t.co/MzoDKy3d69
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 16, 2020
The platform prioritised Quote Tweets in October due to the spread of misinformation, particularly during the US elections.
Many users had depended on social media platforms to provide them with news coverage during this critical moment in US history.
Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a breeding ground of misinformation.
According to a thread back in October, Twitter prompted users to ‘Quote Tweet’ to add their thoughts and opinions when commenting.
They hoped it brought “more thoughts, reactions & perspectives” when making social commentary on the platform.
But ultimately, that plan backfired.
In a thread on Wednesday, Twitter announced that after experimenting with this feature, it will be withdrawing it from the platform.
The social media site said that it had hoped that the feature would increase “more thoughtful amplification”, but this wasn’t the case.
Our goal with prompting QTs (instead of Retweets) was to encourage more thoughtful amplification. We don’t believe that this happened, in practice. The use of Quote Tweets increased, but 45% of them included single-word affirmations and 70% had less than 25 characters. (2/4)
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 16, 2020
The company says that the use of Quote Tweets increased, but many contained single words and the majority had less than 25 characters.
As a result, Twitter has returned to the traditional format. When you click on the retweet button, you will see the option to either retweet or Quote Tweet.
“We’ll continue to focus on encouraging more thoughtful amplification,” Twitter says. “We believe this requires multiple solutions ‒‒ some of which may be more effective than others.”
Feature image: Photo Mix on Pixabay
