Twitter 'introducing some friction into the process' of retweeting until 'at least' the end of election week

Here’s where we stand now. It’s Oct. 20, and The New York Post has been locked out of tweeting from the @nypost account since Oct. 14 because it won’t take down six links to its exposé on emails and other materials found on a laptop allegedly abandoned by Hunter Biden at a Delaware repair shop.

The @nypost, the oldest and one of the largest news outlets in America, has been frozen out of Twitter for 6 days.

— Emma-Jo Morris (@EmmaJoNYC) October 20, 2020

Byron York notes that it will be a week tomorrow since a representative from Facebook said that the story hadn’t gone through its third-party fact-checking process yet:

Tomorrow will be one week. Any update on the third-party fact-checking process? https://t.co/MSBfgPvx2Q

— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 20, 2020

And now we’re learning from The Verge that Twitter plans to “introduce some friction” into the retweeting process until at least the end of election week (note how it’s election week now, and not Election Day). The mechanism, if we understand it, goes like this: You hit the retweet button as usual, but Twitter treats it as a quote-tweet and gives you by default the option to enter your own text (or fact-check). The thought, apparently, is this will slow down retweets, as it will give users pause before finally hitting that button to post.

Twitter is throttling retweeting until after the election. They're knee-capping their own business to stick it to Republicans and prevent any pro-Trump narratives from taking hold. https://t.co/ilEHcSKN8V

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 20, 2020

Now might be a good time for a reminder that the New York Times editorial board called for some way of “introducing friction into the algorithms” around the election just in case President Trump tweeted that he’d won on election night before all the absentee and mail-in ballots had been counted. The Times was very concerned about such a tweet spreading around.

They want to add friction, they are about to get friction.

— datawatts (@datawatts) October 20, 2020

I've retweeting without adding anything above.

— AMY E JOHNSON (@AEJ58) October 20, 2020

You’re allowed to leave the field blank; again, it’s just to give you a moment’s pause before you retweet that conspiracy theory about, say, Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Been wondering what was happening

— SaMpLe€AtL???????????? (@SampleATL) October 20, 2020

I just noticed that.

— Andy Asaro (@racetrackandy) October 20, 2020

That is nuts

— Brian Ross (@brewmeone) October 20, 2020

Note that they're not worried this will also stop the spread of left-wing information.

Even on a very much left-wing platform.

Almost like they know something.

— World's Longest Sigh (@ShidaPenns) October 20, 2020

Lots of business have been going against their best interests just to stick it to Trump never seen anything like it really

— Dobrin Tzvetkovsky (@DTzvetkovsky) October 20, 2020

I noticed the change a couple hours ago… annoying

— BurpMacklinFBI (@BurpFbi) October 20, 2020

I noticed it started today

— Freedom Lover (@hurls65nahs) October 20, 2020

Whenever I hit retweet on anything it goes straight to quote tweet.

— RIP_CEE_FUSS (@Bo_cee_fuss) October 20, 2020

Throttling and controlling information has always been thier core business

— Pamplemousse (@mrkeeny) October 20, 2020

Related:

NYT editorial board: Social media platforms ‘could introduce friction into the algorithms’ if Trump tweets that he won https://t.co/fhtVX2fnLo

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 29, 2020