Twitter Adds Public View Counts To Tweets

San Fransisco: Twitter has begun rolling out view count for tweets, a feature that displays how many people have viewed a certain tweet.

Elon Musk revealed this new feature in a tweet, writing, “Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video.” “Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90 per cent of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions,” he continued.

Users can now see view counters alongside the number of comments, retweets, and likes, according to sources.

However, a Twitter FAQ states that not every tweet will have a visible view count. Community tweets, tweets from Twitter Circles, and “older” tweets are the exceptions due to the lack of data for them.

Regarding the definition of a view, it appears that this is essentially any time that your tweet appears on someone else’s screen, even if it is your own.

Twitter states, “No matter where they see your Tweet (e.g., Home, Search, Profiles, Tweets embedded in articles, etc.) or whether they follow you or not, every person who views it counts as a view. Views include even authors who simply glance at their own Tweets.”

Furthermore, looking at a tweet on the web and then on a phone would be considered two separate views. Additionally, everyone will be able to see these views, not just the account owner.

When Musk first revealed this feature on December 1, he hinted that he was attempting to make text and image tweets on the platform more like video tweets, which already had public view counts.

Musk further asserted that the introduction of this public view feature would act as a signifier of how “active” the platform is.