Twitter will ask users to read article before retweeting it

Twitter will ask users if they have actually read an article before sharing it on the social network. This happens when a user retweets a tweet containing an article that he or she has not opened.

Twitter is testing the feature among a limited group of Android users. This is a feature in the official app. When a user retweets a particular tweet containing a link, Twitter first checks whether the user has opened the article. If not, the user will see a popup asking if the user is sure they want to retweet the article. It is not known what that pop-up looks like.

Twitter says it doesn’t track which URLs a user visits in their browser. It only concerns articles that have been opened via Twitter itself. The user can always ignore the warning and retweet the tweet.

Twitter says that the position is intended to ‘stimulate an informed discussion’. “Sharing an article can cause controversy, so it’s good to read it before tweeting it,” the company wrote.