When it comes to hashtags on social media, Twitter may be the one to have started it all, being the method to track conversations on a specific topic. So there was quite the scare when the trend starter looked to have become the one to end it as well. The microblogging platform was seen testing making hashtags not clickable, unless paid for by big brand names.
Frequent app reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong shared on the same platform a couple of days prior a tweet to that effect. The way to tell if a brand has paid for a hashtag to be clickable is if also comes with an icon next to the hashtag. This is usually temporary, as a way to promote something, and we’ve seen this frequently, especially around the time of big announcements and launches. Apple events, as well as the PS5 when it was first announced, were among the standouts among hashtags coming with icons.
Twitter is working on an experiment where #hashtags are no longer clickable links
(unless the Tweet contains Branded Hashtags like #OneTeam and #Periscope that brands pay to add an icon next to hashtags for a while to promote stuff)
Not sure what this is for… pic.twitter.com/DdcYyDVaNM
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 10, 2022
In a statement to 9to5Mac, a Twitter spokesperson says that this is a “temporary test visible to a small number of people on web only”. Said spokesperson also added that the company has “no plans to remove hashtag functionality on the platform”. Which is probably for the best for everyone involved, considering the ubiquity of the function on social media, and especially on Twitter specifically.
All that being said though, it’s a bit curious that the company is testing a feature that it doesn’t plan to implement. After all, egregious monetisation is often the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of every free service’s users. And with Twitter specifically, it already has such a history. After all, it is already locking the ability to edit tweets, a much requested feature, behind a premium subscription.
(Source: Jane Manchun Wong / Twitter, 9to5Mac)
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