Twitter has announced that the wait for GIFs in Retweets is officially over. As of this writing, Twitter users across all mobile platforms, whether in a browser or the Twitter app, can add a GIF, photo, or video to Retweets.
When creating a Retweet, you’ll get the same addons menu that you would get with a normal Tweet. This will happen in the official Twitter app on Android and iOS, along with mobile.twitter.com.
This means that third-party apps that are essentially a shell for the mobile site will have the capability, and it can be accessed on desktop simply by going to the mobile site. There’s no word as yet on when or if the feature will come to the full-fat desktop version of Twitter.
The feature is incredibly simple, to the point it essentially couldn’t be any more so. When you’re on the mobile version of Twitter, there’s a tool bar along the bottom of the Tweet window that allows you to add media.
There’s an accessible button to let you search for the perfect GIF, among other functionalities, and inserts the media you choose into your Tweet. With this feature update, you can now use that same menu in Retweets.
Whenever you Retweet something, you have a choice to simply Retweet it as is, or Retweet with comment; you’ll obviously want to choose the latter in order to add a GIF, some extra flavor text, or any other media to a Retweet.
This is part of a long bid to make Twitter an all-around more engaging platform, and in large part, a step in the right direction. Now, users will be able to react to others’ Tweets more easily and in a richer and more eye-catching manner, add supporting media, and more. Naturally, people using the new feature to poke fun at fellow users or make sly jokes is sure to ensue.
Even with this change, however, Twitter still has a number of major problems that its user base wants to see solved, as well as a range of features that users are calling for. The one feature that seems to crop up the most in those threads is an edit button, an idea that Twitter has been tossing around for quite some time and can’t seem to figure out just how to execute.
More features being needed is really the least of Twitter’s problems, unfortunately. Many of the platform’s top complaints contradict each other, in fact, preventing the social media giant from pleasing everybody in one fell swoop.
One example of that is a number of people criticizing the platform’s rules as punishing and preventing free speech, while another set says that the platform isn’t doing enough to thwart toxic behavior. Meanwhile, bots seem to run amok, users have tons of means to artificially inflate their follower count, and there are content curation issues, just to name a few problems.
The issue of data collection and security is also a perplexing one, and a recent meeting between Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and US President Donald Trump, happening behind closed doors, didn’t seem to make users any more comfortable.
Add context, spark conversation, express yourself.
Starting today on iOS, Android, and https://t.co/7xPCiccs3Y, you can now add photos, a GIF, or a video to your Retweets. pic.twitter.com/Fvx8xki2zs
— Twitter Media (@TwitterMedia) May 6, 2019