In a bid to root out malware, viruses and phishing — and add some convenience — social-media giant Twitter announced Wednesday that it will begin automatically screening and shortening URLs in tweets. That will allow the link to be identified so Twitter followers will know where they are clicking to, rather than just see a random jumble of letters and numbers.
Cutting Out the Middleman
Twitter users have had to go to a third-party site like TinyURL.com or Bit.ly to shorten the web address they want to include and then paste it in, unless they are using the more advanced Tweet Deck software, which allows automatic shortening.
Twitter in March began automatically routing links included in direct messages through a screening system to detect and intercept threats, with those messages picking up a twt.tl URL tag. Those URLs reported to Twitter as malicious were blacklisted and recipients warned. The next step was to extend that process to all tweets.
Twitter announced at its Chirp developer conference in April that it wanted to make it easier to shorten URLs within Twitter,
“To meet both of these goals, we’re taking small steps to expand the link service currently available in direct messages to links shared through all tweets,” the company said on its official blog. “We’re testing this link service now with a few Twitter employee accounts.” Ultimately, the change will “contribute to the metrics behind our Promoted Tweets platform and provide an important quality signal for our resonance algorithm — the way we determine if a tweet is relevant and interesting to users.”
Full Disclosure
Links to specific articles or sections of a web site tend to be far longer than just the site URL because they contain information such as date of publication, title of an article, and other code. Because tweets are limited to 140 characters,… More info
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