Twitter Changes 'Retweet Rules' Ahead of US Elections

From this Wednesday until November 3, Twitter users are asked to share their tweets with a comment. This request is aimed at forcing citizens to reflect on what they are sharing or add a personal perspective on the shared content.

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U.S. users are being redirected to the "retweet with comment" step directly once the "retweet" button is pressed. Although if they leave that space blank, they will be able to retweet without making a comment, as is the default option for users from the rest of the world.

By forcing the step of retweeting with comments, this social network expects users to help stop the spread of misinformation, unverified information, and disrespectful opinions.

"Twitter has a critical role to play in protecting the integrity of the election conversation, and we encourage candidates, campaigns, news outlets and voters to use Twitter respectfully and to recognise our collective responsibility to the electorate to guarantee a safe, fair and legitimate democratic process,” Twitter's legal, policy, and trust and safety lead Vijaya Gadde said, as reported by News 18.

Twitter will not allow recommendations for "like" or "followed by" content from unfollowed users. The list of trends will also be limited to topics that include context.

In addition, this social media placed tags to add context about possible content that promotes misinformation or violates Twiitter's terms of use.

These types of measures to contain bad information were previously announced. Nevertheless, some conservative movements have been critical of Twitter for what they consider an attempt to restrict their freedom of expression.