Twitter Stops Quote Tweet, Restores Retweet Function

Femi Ashekun/

Twitter announced today that it will stop prompting users to quote tweet instead of retweeting directly, meaning users can now return to retweeting without first adding a comment.

According to Twitter, the initial hope was that asking people to add their own words to a tweet would lead to “more thoughtful amplification” on the platform.

But as the company explained in a Dec. 16 thread, that didn’t really happen.

“The use of Quote Tweets increased, but 45% of them included single-word affirmations and 70% had less than 25 characters,” wrote Twitter.

The initial push to favor quote tweets over retweets kicked off in early October of this year, and was initially met with confusion. 

“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 wrote at the time.