Twitter has a new defense against fake news

Are you one of those who share news by reading only headlines? Well, Twitter knows you and knows how you act. A somewhat dangerous trend that helps distribute not only information, but also hoaxes and fake news to change public opinion with biased facts and arguments. Twitter is also the ideal place for this, but it has begun to take steps to prevent this from happening: now it will want to know if you have read all the information before replicating itlike a parrot.

It all started three months ago, when Twitter decided to launch an experiment to try to contain criticism and practices about fake news and its propagation. The idea is simple: ask the user if they have read the article they are about to retweet All this with the convenient option of reading it right then and there directly on Twitter , without leaving the application. An ad that, after three months appearing on different users' mobile phones, has yielded some very interesting numbers.

? More reading – people open articles 40% more often after seeing the prompt? More informed Tweeting – people opening articles before RTing increased by 33% ? Some people didn't end up RTing after opening the article – which is fine! Some Tweets are best left in drafts ?

- Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) September 24, 2020

Now Twitter knows that 40% more users click on articles after receiving this message.But there is more. 33% more people also open the article to find out before RTing that content They have even found out that some users have given up sharing the article itself upon receiving this notice and reading the actual content. Although at this point Twitter does not offer specific numbers or percentages.

Notices for everyone

The social network has considered this experiment a complete success. Or at least help to fight against the spread of fake news. For this reason, it has announced that it will soon transfer this experiment to all Twitter users. In other words, in the near future, with no official date yet, users will receive a notification before sharing an article or content inviting them to read it completely if they haven't already. Something that should translate into a more responsible use of the application, communication and transmission of information in these messages.

But it is not the only novelty. In addition to implementing this function, Twitter has realized that it can improve it compared to the experiment carried out. That is why it will warn with a large initial message the first times that a RT is going to be done. However, have improved the design and this notice will be less intrusive and smaller on subsequent occasions for those users who have previously encountered it.

And we must not forget that introducing extra steps in an application can negatively affect the user experience. No one wants to be constantly notified before posting something, as the most likely result is not posting. Or even worse, that users leave the application because of that bad experienceSo it is clear that Twitter is taking risks with this feature in pursuit of the truth or, at least, that its users are a little more informed about the content they publish.

One more measure against fake news and harassment

Twitter has been trying for some time to improve its operation and thus reduce criticism for being the ideal channel for fake news and clappers. You already know that there are robot or bot accounts capable of systematically publishing messages. However, Twitter wants to stop them by making them disappear if they don't regularly change their profile picture, or if they don't verify with a phone number.

How to Limit Who Can Reply to Your Twitter Tweets

Apart from this, the social network has also been criticized for harassment attacks. That is why, for some time now, Twitter has allowed you to hide spam comments or insults in threads and responses.Or even offer users to limit who can reply to a post Maybe not the ultimate solution for this problem, but it's an approach.