Twitter is returning retweets to the way they used to be

Twitter will no longer automatically show the quote tweet prompt when you try to retweet something starting on Wednesday, the company announced.

The change to the way retweets worked was first implemented in October ahead of the 2020 US presidential election. Twitter’s aim with the change was to encourage people to tweet and amplify information more thoughtfully.

“We don’t believe that this happened, in practice,” Twitter said in a series of tweets. “The use of Quote Tweets increased, but 45 percent of them included single-word affirmations and 70 percent had less than 25 characters.” Twitter also saw a 20 percent decrease in retweets and quote tweets while the automatic quote tweet prompt was in place.

While the changes to retweets were in place, you didn’t have to write anything in the quote tweet prompt that appeared. Leaving the prompt blank and hitting the retweet button in the prompt would share that tweet to your followers with no context from you. But apparently, the change to retweets didn’t exactly accomplish what Twitter wanted, so the company is changing how retweets work back to the way they used to be.