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> If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share. I’m not sure if this would really be worse; it would slow down viral retweets
by pimlottc 5y ago
> If you removed that button people would copy and paste or screenshot and share.
I’m not sure if this would really be worse; it would slow down viral retweets and could induce users to add context or reframe the shared item to better suit their audience.
I mean, imagine what it would be like if someone in real life just constantly repeated things their friends said, word for word, to everyone in the room. Yes, people do sometimes parrot things from other people, but more often it’s modified, filtered through their own understanding and viewpoint, adapted to the present context and audience, and selected for relevance and appropriateness.
- jtbayly 5y agoI never said it would be worse. Just that it would happen. But I don’t think that people wanting to reshare in a digital context would bother with the work of rephrasing. They already have the opportunity to add their own thoughts to a tweet they reshare. I suspect it would be practically the same.
- Karunamon 5y agoFunny story; before there was a dedicated button, people did precisely this. You'd see tweets of the form "RT @Someone (their message)" The "adding context" bit didn't really happen, because quoting the tweet ate your own 140 character limit, and a viral RT is always going to get more exposure than your explanatory reply.