More than a decade and a half into its existence, Twitter has confirmed what was as soon as unthinkable: an edit button is on the best way. The firm confirmed as a lot Tuesday, saying that it has been “been engaged on an edit function since final 12 months.”
The firm was mild on particulars, but it surely did share a mock-up of the function, which it mentioned it will take a look at first with Twitter Blue subscribers “within the coming months.”
Twitter added that “no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll,” in an obvious reference to Elon Musk, who not too long ago grew to become the corporate’s largest shareholder and instantly requested his followers if the corporate ought to create the long-requested function.
👀 pic.twitter.com/I13wE3eLdn
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) April 5, 2022
In a separate thread, the corporate’s head of shopper product Jay Sullivan mentioned that an edit button “has been the most requested Twitter feature for many years.” He mentioned the corporate could be “actively seeking input and adversarial thinking” previous to launching the function as a way to stop potential misuse.
“Without things like time limits, controls, and transparency about what has been edited, Edit could be misused to alter the record of the public conversation,” Sullivan wrote. “Protecting the integrity of that public conversation is our top priority when we approach this work. Therefore, it will take time and we will be actively seeking input and adversarial thinking in advance of launching Edit.”
That Twitter will begin experimenting with editable tweets is a serious shift for the corporate. Executives have lengthy acknowledged the practicality of having the ability to repair typos and proper errors, however have cited issues that an edit button may chip away at Twitter’s capacity to behave as a public document. As not too long ago as 2020, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey mentioned it will “most likely” by no means occur, regardless of beforehand seeming open to the concept. “We needed to protect that vibe, that feeling, within the early days,” he mentioned, referring to Twitter’s origins as an SMS-based service.
4/ Therefore, it’ll take time and we shall be actively in search of enter and adversarial pondering prematurely of launching Edit. We will strategy this function with care and thoughtfulness and we’ll share updates as we go.
— Jay Sullivan (@jaysullivan) April 5, 2022
Prior to Twitter confirming it was in actual fact engaged on an edit button, Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth weighed in on the concept, claiming that Facebook had already “solved” points round potential misuse. “You just include an indicator that it has been edited along with a change log,” he wrote. “If you are really worried about embeds they can point to a specific revision in that history but with a link to the latest edit. Not a real issue.”
Bringing the edit button to Twitter Blue subscribers first is also a serious enhance to Twitter’s recently-launched subscription service. The $2.99/month service offers subscribers further options, like the power to “undo” tweets and entry to NFT profile photographs. But that doesn’t imply edit performance will all the time be restricted to those that pay. Editing shall be obtainable first as a “Twitter Blue Labs” function, however the firm has mentioned it intends to make some “labs” options obtainable to everybody after preliminary testing. Whether that would be the case with tweet modifying is unclear for now.