After years of resistance, Twitter is finally giving in and adding an edit button.
What You Need To Know
- After years of resistance, Twitter is finally giving in and adding an edit button
- The social media giant announced Thursday it is testing an edit feature internally and will allow subscribers to its $5-a-month Twitter Blue service to begin testing it later this month
- The new feature being tested, called “Edit Tweet,” will give users 30 minutes after they post a tweet to change it “a few times,” Twitter said
- All edited tweets will be marked with an icon, timestamp and label so it’s clear they were modified, and users will be able to view a post’s edit history and previous versions
The social media giant announced Thursday it is testing an edit feature internally and will allow subscribers to its $5-a-month Twitter Blue service to begin testing it later this month. All users will be able to view edited tweets.
The new feature being tested, called “Edit Tweet,” will give users 30 minutes after they post a tweet to change it “a few times,” Twitter said.
“Think of it as a short period of time to do things like fix typos, add missed tags, and more,” Twitter said in a blog post.
All edited tweets will be marked with an icon, timestamp and label so it’s clear they were modified. A user can click on the label to view the post’s edit history and previous versions, meaning the original message won’t disappear entirely; it’ll just be hidden.
“For context, the time limit and version history play an important role here,” Twitter said. “They help protect the integrity of the conversation and create a publicly accessible record of what was said.”
As recently as last year, Twitter appeared firmly opposed to adding an edit button, which it says has been the most requested feature on the platform. The inability to modify a tweet left users feeling remorse over a post with two options: delete it or live with it.
In June 2021, the company tweeted, “you don’t need an edit button, you just need to forgive yourself.”
And in a January 2021 Q&A for Wired, CEO Jack Dorsey said “we’ll probably never do” an edit button.
Part of his reasoning was that someone might significantly alter a post that has been retweeted by others, who would then appear to endorse an entirely different message.
Dorsey, however, stepped down as CEO in November and was replaced by Parag Agrawal, formerly the company’s chief technology officer.
Despite its newfound willingness to give an edit button a shot, Twitter says it’s still wary about the potential for misuse and will be tracking such issues in testing.
“You can never be too careful,” it said.
The company says it also is “paying close attention to how the feature impacts the way people read, write, and engage with Tweets.”
The testing on Twitter Blue will initially begin in a single country before being expanded. The company did not say which country will receive the edit button first.
