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Twitter made hashtags a common element of social media today, regardless of which platform people use. It was then interesting to find that the platform had been testing a strikingly different version of hashtags that would function as plain keywords.
Questions about the future versions of hashtags started circulating online after app researcher and reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered that Twitter was testing non-clickable hashtags. Wong shared a screenshot that shows “#hashtag” in a Twitter web post but, in this case, it was not highlighted as a live URL.
In the experiment, though, Wong noted that branded hashtags remain clickable. For those not familiar with branded hashtags, these are the hashtags accompanied by a special icon by default. Brands need to pay Twitter to have this feature live on the platform, which has become a common way for companies to advertise new products or events.
The good news is Twitter denied speculations that hashtags are going to change for good. While the platform confirmed the experiment Wong found exists, Twitter implied it is not planning to release it as an official update.
In a statement to 9To5Mac, Twitter said the non-clickable hashtags are part of a “temporary test” that can be accessed for “a small number of people” on the Twitter web app. The social media company added that it has “no plans to remove hashtag functionality on the platform.”
It is difficult to imagine Twitter without clickable hashtags, as it is one of the most popular features on the platform. And that makes it easier to believe that Twitter is not going to remove hashtags’ clickable format.
It still begs the question, though, why Twitter is testing non-clickable hashtags in the first place. Twitter did not offer a specific explanation but speculating on the purpose of the experiment, Wong suggested it could be related to Twitter’s civic integrity policies. The company temporarily tweaked how the Retweet functionality worked amid the United States election in 2020.
Photo by Ravi Sharma (@ravinepz) from Unsplash
