In order to promote informed discussion, Twitter is now testing a new feature that will prompt the user before retweeting the news article, Twitter support said on Thursday.
However, this new feature is only for Android at the moment.
In a series of tweet, Twitter support said that "Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it. To help promote informed discussion, we're testing a new prompt on Android –– when you Retweet an article that you haven't opened on Twitter, we may ask if you'd like to open it first."
Explaining how it works, Twitter Support said, "For this experiment, if you tap to Retweet an article link, we’ll check if you've recently clicked the article link only on Twitter, not elsewhere. When you see the prompt, you'll always have the option to go ahead and Retweet."
Twitter Support said that this move aims at improving the "health of a conversation as it gets started. "We wanted to test a way to improve the health of a conversation as it gets started. And to see if reminding people to read an article before they share it leads to more informed discussion."
Well, this new feature is only for news articles and not for sponsored posts or ads that pops up on one's feed. "We're not testing ad products with these prompts. They're designed to empower healthy and informed public conversation."
Responding to a query by a Twitter user who asked "Why just on Android?", Twitter Support said that "Keeping the experiment to one platform lets us build and test as fast and effectively as possible."
