NBC News issued a major correction to a piece which originally reported that Twitter was considering hiding publicly available user engagement information like retweets and likes in the name of creating a more “friendly” environment for users and to promote a “healthy conversation” on a prototype new app called twttr.
The news raced around Twitter on Wednesday — with some even saying the change might have been inspired by Kanye West — before an update to the bottom of the piece from reporter Chiara Sottile revealed that the news organization was walking back the story’s central claim.
“An earlier version of this article misstated the changes that Twitter is testing in a prototype app. Twitter is testing putting engagement counts on replies behind a user tap, not removing the engagement counts for tweets,” it read.
The original language of the report that read, “The prototype also removes the engagement counts showing the number of retweets or ‘likes’ a tweet receives” was changed to read “The prototype also moves the engagement counts for replies behind a tap.”
Reps for NBC News declined TheWrap’s request for comment on this story. Reps for Twitter referred TheWrap to an online statement.
“Yesterday, we started giving people access to our prototype app twttr which we’re using to test new ideas and get feedback. Putting likes and retweets behind a tap is just an idea to help make conversations easier to read,” the company said. “The features in Twitter and twttr will be different. twttr is the place where we’ll experiment with explorations and ideas (like a new look for conversations) that may or may not come to Twitter.”
Other elements of the article remained unchanged Wednesday, including reporting that the social network was considering “new features to enhance pictures and video on the app in an effort to encourage users to make more use of the cameras on their smartphones” and is testing them for the new app.
“We’ve really intentionally tried to make the images and footage that are captured on the ground at an event look different than other images and videos that you might attach to a tweet,” Keith Coleman, Twitter’s head of consumer product, told NBC.