In a recent update from one of the world’s largest social media platforms, Twitter brings in a new way to tweet; Quote Tweet. Just like many other updates, there is bound to be a reaction. This time it is a mix of both positive and negative reactions.

Today we’re rolling out the updates that encourage more thoughtful amplification of Tweets, and that add more context to content.

This is part of our approach to limit the spread of misleading information during #Election2020. For more on this approach and these updates (1/2): https://t.co/1GrJLOYQ78

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I prefer it on Telegram

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) October 20, 2020

What is Quote Tweet

A quote tweet is a retweet that has been made with a comment. Essentially, you’re retweeting a piece of content onto your own feed while simultaneously adding your own thoughts to it. This is a great way to engage with other users while also bringing your own audience into the conversation.

When you reply directly to a tweet, your response won’t necessarily be seen by all of your followers. Quote tweeting pushes the initial tweet alongside your response into your feed, igniting the conversation.

Two Sides of a coin

There’s two sides to this new update.

The new retweet option is designed to give more prominence to quote retweet, but how I see it, it's just a UX improvement to remove one extra step in the process. No need to select whether to quote retweet or just retweet. The difference is whether you add text or not.

— Gicheru ❁ (@martingicheru) October 21, 2020

Positives

As a Retweeter, this way of responding to a tweet adds it right to the top of your profile. It also pushes it out into your feed, and allows more people to see and respond to it than a simple reply does.

Like in the image above, all the attention is no longer on the original tweet but it is now on the quote retweet. This allows you to create more engagement on your posts and even row your following.

However, with every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction;

Negatives

When you take away all of the attention, that leaves the creators and artists with much less reach than they originally had. For instance, one @shockpine explains her struggles with the update:

HEY, retweets have been changed! It may not be obvious, but you can still retweet posts by bringing up the quote tweet menu, leaving the text area BLANK, and hitting retweet! Quote retweets are not very helpful to artists, but retweeting is! pic.twitter.com/1SWuvHMhEv

— Audie ✨ (@shockpine) October 21, 2020

If you still do not get how it affects them;

a blank quote retweet just registers as a regular retweet! the problem with quote retweets is that it takes potential attention away from a post and gives it to the quote tweet instead

— Audie ✨ (@shockpine) October 21, 2020

According to many sources, however, it may only stick around during the U.S. election period.

One of these updates is temporarily prompting Quote Tweets instead of Retweets.

We heard your overall feedback and understand that some of you, like artists who share their work on Twitter, value Retweets. You can still Retweet by not adding anything into the QT composer. (2/2)

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) October 20, 2020