Twitter’s 2021 acquisition connected to ad-free article reading was Scroll.
Scroll was a subscription service that let members read participating news websites without the usual advertising and tracking interruptions. Twitter acquired Scroll in 2021 as part of its broader interest in subscription products and a healthier reading experience.
The service had worked with publishers by sharing subscription revenue, giving readers a way to support participating journalism while receiving cleaner pages. Twitter temporarily paused new sign-ups during the acquisition process, and Scroll later became associated with Twitter’s subscription strategy.
Scroll is easy to confuse with read-later apps such as Pocket or Instapaper. Those services primarily save pages for later access, whereas Scroll’s central promise was an ad-free reading experience on supported publisher sites.