Twitter wants you to stop screengrabbing tweets and share them instead

Twitter is taking steps to increase engagement on the platform by discouraging people from taking screenshots of tweets. iOS users are the first to be subjected to prompt to share a tweet rather than a screengrab of it.

The move makes it clear that Twitter is able to determine when users are taking screengrabs, and while many of the images will end up being shared on Twitter itself, the company would prefer that links were shared to other platforms to encourage click-throughs.

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Twitter has confirmed that a number of users are being used to test the new prompt that appears when someone tries to share a screengrab of a tweet. The prompt does not prevent a screenshot from being shared, but it strongly encourages Twitter's prefer options of either the tweet in question or sharing a link to the tweet -- the idea being that viewer will then be forced to view the content on Twitter rather than in an image.

Serial uncoverer of Twitter secrets Jane Manchun Wong was first to bring the new prompts to light:

She goes on to explain what she thinks is behind the move:

There are many reasons for people wanting to share screengrabs of tweets rather than tweets themselves. Firstly, it safeguards against tweets being deleted or edited. Secondly, it makes it possible to draw attention to something that has been tweeted without increasing engagement with a Twitter user or topic that is in some way disagreeable.

Image credit: rafapress / depositphotos