Social-Media
Republican politicians are upset at Twitter asking users to read stories before retweeting.
House Judiciary Committee Republicans and Committee Member Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) are making a false argument about a new Twitter feature that requires users to read articles before retweeting them. Earlier this year, Twitter began experimenting speedily to avoid knee-jerk retweets. It appears on links throughout the entire service, but Republican lawmakers have cited individual alerts about right-wing posts as the latest in a number of censorship charges.
Twitter revealed last month that it would carry out the feature across its mobile apps, describing it as a way to help foster informed conversation. When you click the retweet button on a connection that you haven't visited, Twitter adds a label above the confirmation menu, warning that headlines don't tell the full story and giving you a chance to check out the story.
This is optional; you can skip it and only confirm the retweet if you like, and it doesn't add any extra taps.
But some conservative users of Twitter have expressed outrage at the notice. Former PJ Media editor David Steinberg alleged that Twitter put a headline warning sign in a Wall Street Journal article about Republican Congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik, claiming the prompt should disturb every American. The sign appears if you're trying to rewrite a number of other WSJ posts on a variety of subjects, as well as news from The Verge and other media outlets.
The argument has been amplified by Republican members of Congress. Collins reported that Twitter had "censored" all Sean Hannity posts, citing marks on links to Hannity.com. The Twitter account of the Judiciary Committee Republicans made a similar argument about an article in Hannity, insinuating that Twitter had specifically attached an alert to the story about the supposedly leaked emails from Hunter Biden.
We're doing this to encourage everyone to read news articles before Tweeting them, regardless of the publication or the article. If you want to Retweet or Quote Tweet it, literally just click once more. More: https://t.co/El0yfeHlG2 https://t.co/FXfdjtAAPA
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) October 21, 2020
The Twitter Communications Team tweeted a very exasperated response. We do this to enable people to read news articles before Tweeting them, regardless of the publication or story, the spokesperson wrote. If you want to retweet or quote a tweet, literally click again.
It's not really shocking that Twitter 's latest feature will raise hackles as it comes to the heels of two controversial Twitter decisions. Twitter blocked a link to articles in the New York Post about Hunter Biden's emails last week, citing a ban on "hacked material" before apologizing and modifying its policy. It also began, on a temporary basis, asking users to quote tweets instead of retweeting them, another effort to promote further interaction. Today, the Senate Committee approved subpoenas for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, calling on them to testify about limiting the scope of the Post story.
Twitter doesn't seem to extend the alert to every connection either, and that's created some online confusion. As mentioned by the National Republican Senate Committee, you can retweet links to the ActBlue Democratic Fundraising Site without notice. However, we also got no warning when retweeting a connection to WinRed Republican equivalent. We asked Twitter for more details as to when the mark appears. But whatever its reaction, the function is much more common than those legislators say.
