Dont just retweet, put in your thoughts too! Twitter temporarily tweaks tweet sharing policy

Twitter on Wednesday temporarily tweaked its retweet policy. The new update, which comes ahead of the US presidential election, will encourage micro-blogging platform users to add their thoughts before retweeting others' messages. "One of these updates is temporarily prompting Quote Tweets instead of Retweets. We heard your overall feedback and understand that some of you, like artists who share their work on Twitter, value Retweets. You can still Retweet by not adding anything into the Quote Tweets composer," Twitter said.

Now, when a Twitter user hits the retweet button, he can either add a comment or leave it blank and then retweet. "Hey everyone, we made a temporary change to the Retweet function. When you hit the Retweet button, you can either add a comment to Quote Tweet or leave it blank and hit the Retweet button," the company also said.

This change is a part of an effort to "encourage more thoughtful consideration" of tweets -- and presumably, to curb the spread of misinformation. Many are viewing this as a step taken to stop the spread of information during the United States' election.

The microblogging platform also said the change was "temporary" and would remain in place through "at least the end of Election week."

"You may not use Twitter's services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process," Twitter had earlier said as it updated its Civic Integrity Policy.

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