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Twitter Social Networks

Twitter Knows You Took a Screenshot, Asks You To Share Instead (arstechnica.com) 54

Posted by BeauHD from the pesky-prompts dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Twitter is seemingly working to remind people that interesting tweets are something you should click, load, and view while logged into the company's ad-funded service, not merely see in a screenshot. That's why some users are seeing a "Share Tweet?" pop-up whenever the Twitter app notices them taking a screenshot. Social media analyst Matt Navarra noted the two kinds of nudge prompts in a tweet: "Copy link" and "Share Tweet." TechCrunch noted that some of its staff members were receiving the prompt and pointed to another tweet in which Twitter provided both "Copy link" and "Share Tweet" buttons.

Twitter makes money when people visit the site in a browser or load it in Twitter's official apps, then see sponsored tweets or pre-roll advertisements on native videos (users can also sign up for a Twitter Blue subscription). Screenshots, whether shared directly or on competing social platforms, don't create revenue. Engaging with Twitter itself could encourage people to sign up and do more of that. Twitter reported 237.8 million "average monetizable daily active usage" in Q2 2022, up 16.6 percent compared to the same quarter in 2021. The company claims this increase was driven by "ongoing product improvements" and "global conversation around current events." It makes sense why Twitter, the corporate entity, prefers tweet links to screenshots, enough so to A/B/C test a prompt that can make users feel like the Twitter app is both closely watching and scolding them. But for Twitter, the cultural entity, screenshots are enormously valuable, likely more so than links alone. If you've been engaging in Internet culture for years, you've seen why.
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Twitter Knows You Took a Screenshot, Asks You To Share Instead More

Twitter Knows You Took a Screenshot, Asks You To Share Instead

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  • There are a few reasons to take screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZorinLynx ( 31751 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @05:56PM (#62948069) Homepage

    The first one is, sometimes you want to share a tweet without giving that person engagement. They may be someone spreading misinformation, and you want to discuss the tweet without telling the algorithm to show it to more people.

    The second is that tweets can be deleted. A screenshot will always work, whereas a tweet shared via a link might go away.

    The big problem here is that the OS shouldn't be telling applications when you took a screenshot. That should be between user and operating system; the app should have no idea it happened. I should report this as a bug in iOS. Not sure if Android does the same thing.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      The app/website just captures 'prtscr' (and probably alt-prtscr). If you use Snip or Sketch or whatever the hell Winblows calls it nowadays, there's no issue, plus you have a nice cut out Twit.

      • Yah, this isn't an issue on computers. On my Mac I can screenshot just fine without the site knowing. This is a problem on mobile, it seems.

      • The app/website just captures 'prtscr' (and probably alt-prtscr).

        No they don't. There's no prtscr in a mobile device. Most apps that detect screenshots monitor the screenshots folder for change since every screenshot by default saves an image file on iOS and Android.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RyoShin ( 610051 )

      Another big one is (I assume) to share it outside of Twitter. If another site even does a link preview, it usually sucks, so taking a screenshot and posting that to Facebook, Tumblr, uh.... Friendster? is going to be noticed a lot more. Plus, at least Facebook promotes posts with images over text- or link-only posts so the screenshot is more likely to be shown to others in their feed than linking would.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      The big problem here is that the OS shouldn't be telling applications when you took a screenshot. That should be between user and operating system; the app should have no idea it happened. I should report this as a bug in iOS. Not sure if Android does the same thing.

      There are valid use cases for sensitive apps like banking/medical/password manager apps, which should rightly warn the user to be careful about taking screenshots with their banking/medical info or passwords.

      Then there are more marginal cases for shopping apps which can remind users a better way to share product links.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fedak ( 868908 )
      In addition to those above: If you share a Tweet to other social media sites (i.e. facebook), the generated post preview doesn't actually contain the contents of the tweet. This is the biggest reason I screenshot tweets rather than linking the original.

    • The big problem here is that the OS shouldn't be telling applications when you took a screenshot. That should be between user and operating system; the app should have no idea it happened. I should report this as a bug in iOS. Not sure if Android does the same thing.

      The OS isn't necessarily telling the application that a screenshot was being taken, but can often inadvertently tell the app that it happened.

      After all, capturing a screenshot can be done in many ways, and a popular one is to ask the window to repaint itself, drawing into the screenshot buffer. The application can capture that oddball repaint request and assume it's being done because it's a screenshot.

      This is especially true for "long screenshots" - those screenshots where you capture it and it captures the entire scrollable area. E.g., you are in a web browser, and you want to capture something. A long screenshot means you can capture, in one screenshot, the entirety of the page instead of having to take a screeenshot, scroll, take another screenshot, scroll, repeat until the end, then manually stitch the screenshots together until you end up with a cohesive whole.

      For a while, those long screenshots were done by manually scrolling and capturing, while the modern OS (both Android and iOS support it) will do it all for you so you get the entirety of it with one push, and you don't have to stitch the image together at the end.

      Apps that support this pretty much need to know because they will end up rendering their entire window, and to do it properly requires the cooperation of the application to properly draw all the borders and such.

    • Third problem: Users may not be interested in going to some portal with all that entails, or may not even be able to. There's variables involved. Is the content available or censored in a country, is the link private so only followers can see or for everyone, are people even willing to go to Twitter? (I'm not, when I click something that directs me to twitter I just close the window, especially on the phone where I'll be greeted with a nag to install an app I don't give a shit about).

      The big problem here is that the OS shouldn't be telling applications when you took a screenshot.

      I disagree with this. S

      • Followup: Just to be clear I'm arguing the S should have more control over this. It's not possible to prevent an app knowing a screenshot has been created if that app has access to storage or clipboard. The classic way of detecting screenshots is to simply monitor the screenshots folder for changes since the OS writes all screenshots to disk.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Sorry, no. A screen shot explicitly requested by the user is a command from God, and a mere app developer should not be allowed to second-guess it. My device, my rules. You can go ahead and enforce your own security policies on your own equipment.

        You can't prevent the user from just photographing the screen anyway.

    • Yeah, the best way to view Twitter is in a private browsing tab behind a VPN & an up-to-date HOSTS blocking list with a decent anti-browser fingerprinting plugin/feature enabled.

      Twitter will harass you like mad to use the app or sign up/log in so you know you're doing something right. Then you can just read the accounts & feeds you want to. If you find an account you want to follow, just bookmark it - it works way better than "following" via Twitter's mechanisms.

      Yeah, unfortunately a lot of expert

    • Yes, twitter CREATED this problem by ALLOWING TWEET DELETION.

      One of the BEST things about Slashdot is that you can neither edit nor delete comments. People cry about it sometimes; those people didn't use preview. Sometimes I make mistakes, because I didn't either. But I don't cry, because I know it's my fault.

      The fact that you can delete tweets makes it mandatory to screenshot any tweet that is controversial before replying, and putting the image into the tweet.

      Easy fix, disable tweet deletion.

      I've deleted

    • By misinformation you mean someone elseâ(TM)s opinions you donâ(TM)t agree with or donâ(TM)t like. Is that what you mean?

  • I assume this is specific to Windows.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dougmc ( 70836 )

      It's actually specific to mobile applications.

      I would argue that no application on my phone should have any insight into whether I just took a screenshot or not -- that should be between my phone and me and nobody else -- but I can certainly understand why apps like twitter and snapchat take advantage of this data that the OS lets them take advantage of.

      I do wish I could prevent this from happening, however.

      • Man, this is exactly the sort of reason why people should never install the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. apps. It's not like you actually gain anything over using their web interfaces; and you give away quite a lot.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          Apparently on iOS, the app can notify the user and the web interface can't because WebKit for iOS doesn't support Push API.

          • Apparently on iOS, the app can notify the user and the web interface can't because WebKit for iOS doesn't support Push API.

            But why would anyone want real time notification for Facebook or Twitter unless they are using their real time chatting feature? I have Whatsapp / Telegram / Signal for that purpose already.

        • Man, this is exactly the sort of reason why people should never install the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. apps. It's not like you actually gain anything over using their web interfaces; and you give away quite a lot.

          Exactly.

          The solution is to keep this junkware off your phone; don't pollute the device with any of these hostile apps or anything like them. Parler, Gab, LinkedIn, Omegle, Yik Yak, etc etc.

          All an app does is increase the available attack surface on your phone, and that new attack surface is almost certainly less secure than a browser would be.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by stikves ( 127823 )

        This is a recent trend that started with "private" communication apps.

        I think snapchat was the first one. It made people assume all their content would auto wipe-out, and there was no way to reshare without knowing. And as far as I know "Clubhouse" (the audio based social network), told people could not record conversations without consent (or something like that).

        Of course all these are "large bovine excrement". Taking a screenshot can always be achieved with something called a "camera", and recording audi

      • I would argue that no application on my phone should have any insight into whether I just took a screenshot or not -- that should be between my phone and me and nobody else

        An app can prevent a screenshot, but any app with access to storage can detect a screenshot simply by monitoring the storage and or clipboard for change.

        At some point you need to realise that running someone else's code on your device is never secure.

  • If something is likely to be deleted or you don't want to engage the sender, screenshots are useful. Maybe you'd like to blur the names or avatars of people's replies.

    Screen caps are usually taken to share anyway, no? Twitter should display a patterned watermark on inline tweets. That way the cap can be cropped but still clearly taken from Twitter.

  • Screenshots are the way to go if you want to destroy someone's career, when that innocuous tweet they made years ago is no longer deemed innocuous.

  • Checkmate (Score:3)

    by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @08:26PM (#62948271)

    To get around this, I've been taking videos of tweets instead. Checkmate, Twitter!

  • If Twitter wants people to visit (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Friday October 07, 2022 @10:18PM (#62948375)

    Maybe they should stop using scripts designed to stop you from looking at a feed unless you sign in.

    A screenshot shows me what someone wants me to see, and it doesn't get locked off my screen after a few new posts.

    • As I mention in my comment, just use Nitter. Same content and no lock-out.

      Just replace twitter.com with the Nitter address:

      https://nitter.lacontrevoie.fr/spacex
  • Avoid all Twitter's nasty, arrogant attempt to lock you in and use Nitter to see and share the stuff people post there.

    And share Nitter links instead of Twitter links ( just the domain name changes ), so no-one is locked out, e.g.:

    https://nitter.lacontrevoie.fr/elonmusk

  • It depends on which program you use or if the program allows you to change the hotkey.

    Do that and recover your privacy.

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