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Twitter to Integrate “Clarification Feature” into Social Media App

Posted on February 17th, 2019
by
Staff Editor


Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is integrating a “clarification” feature for the social media application. Many times we see people, public figures in particular, apologizing or clarifying past tweets due to the negative concepts behind them. To clarify to the public what is meant behind a person or company’s previous tweets is the goal of the new feature. Social media is a huge platform and some account owners have such a massive following that what they post can have a very powerful impact. Brands who use influencers can benefit from this (find out more about why this is here) but it could also have a negative impact on the company if mistakes are made, so this development is an important one.

Feb. 14, during a Goldman Sachs event in San Francisco, Dorsey went into detail about his thought-process on how the new Twitter feature would work, stating, “How do we enable people to quickly go back or to any tweet, whether it be years back or today, and show that original tweet-kind of like a quote retweet, a retweet with comment-and to add some context and some color on what they might have tweeted or what they might have meant?”

Photo by Ball State Daily

Further explaining ideas behind the new feature, Dorsey goes on to say, “Like you wouldn’t be able to retweet the original tweet, for instance. You would just show the clarification, you would be able to retweet the clarification, so it always carries around with it that context. That’s one approach.”

In today’s digital world, the “clarification” feature is absolutely necessary due to “cancel culture.” Past or present, anytime Twitter users discover public figures misusing their social media platform, they tend to “cancel” the person depending on the severity of the tweet. Over the past year alone, we have seen popular figures lose out on opportunities or audience connections due to distasteful tweets from their past. And it’s not just Twitter – other social networking platforms have been used against people too, even down to seemingly private messaging between two individuals. In Canada, for example, the political candidate caylan ford was driven to resign after comments she made in a chat on Messenger had been brought to public attention.

Photo by Rolling Stone

Consider situations as big as Kanye West, who may be the most controversial figure when it comes to “cancel culture,” and Kevin Hart, whose previous homophobic tweets lead to his dismissal from hosting the Oscars. If Hart or West were able to implement the “clarification feature” prior to the internet controversy, they may have been able to dodge or lighten the impact of Twitter’s “cancel culture” by adding context to what they previously tweeted.

The feature will be available soon as Dorsey has yet to give an official timeline.

Feature Image Photo by Mimadeo/iStock

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