San Francisco: In a bid to reduce the spread of fake, harmful content and promote meaningful discussion on the platform, Twitter has announced to test a new feature that would encourage users to think before they retweet linked articles they did not read.

If a user decides to retweet a write-up without opening the link and reading it, Twitter would prompt him or her to read it first before sharing.

"Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it," Twitter Support said in a tweet on Wednesday.

"To help promote informed discussion, we're testing a new prompt on Android – when you Retweet an article that you haven't opened on Twitter, we may ask if you'd like to open it first" it added.

Kayvon Beykpour, who is Product Lead at Twitter, said that it's easy for links/articles to go viral on Twitter.

"This can be powerful but sometimes dangerous, especially if people haven't read the content they're spreading. This feature (on Android for now) encourages people to read a linked article prior to Retweeting it," he said.

A Twitter user replied: "A superb initiative. Rollout to iOS would be warmly welcomed".

Last month, Twitter began a test that allows users to limit who can reply to their tweets on Android, iOS and web app.

Twitter is also testing a new option that will show its users' posts have been retweeted with a comment.

The micro-blogging platform is currently testing the feature with a small group of iOS Twitter users.

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