Twitter is finally adding support for a feature that users have been requesting for years: the ability to edit tweets. The company announced on Thursday that the long-awaited edit button will be available to select Twitter Blue subscribers in the coming weeks. Users will be able to edit tweets for up to half an hour after they are posted, and an edited tweet will display indicators indicating that it has been edited. According to the company, users will be able to see the original tweet as well as subsequent changes.
The edit button is currently being tested internally and will be rolled out to Twitter Blue users in the coming weeks, according to the microblogging service. According to the company, the feature will be tested in a single country before being expanded to other regions. Twitter Blue is the company’s premium subscription service that gives users additional functionality and early access to upcoming features.
The edit button, as previously mentioned, will allow users to make changes to their tweets within 30 minutes. According to Twitter, the brief window will allow users to quickly correct typos or add missing hashtags.
According to Twitter, edited tweets will be clearly marked with an icon, a timestamp, and a label. When a user taps the label, they are taken to the tweet’s edit history, which includes previous changes as well as the original tweet. According to the company, the version history and 30-minute window for editing tweets are essential for protecting the integrity of conversations and maintaining a public record of statements on the platform.
Twitter users have been requesting the ability to edit tweets for years, and the company announced in April that it would add support for an edit button. According to the service, it is testing the feature with a smaller group of people on purpose in order to better understand how the feature could be abused and resolve potential issues.
“We’ll also be watching closely to see how the feature affects how people read, write, and interact with Tweets,” the company said.
The edit button complements Twitter Blue’s other related feature, the ‘undo’ button, which allows users to cancel sending a tweet for up to thirty seconds after pressing the send button.
Twitter Blue is the platform’s premium subscription service, which is available in certain markets such as the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. In an era of declining share prices and profitability, adding an edit button should provide a much-needed boost to the subscription service.
Twitter agreed to be acquired for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,50,200 crore) in April by billionaire Elon Musk, who attempted to back out of the deal in July, claiming that he was misled about the number of fake or spam users on the platform. In preparation for his upcoming legal battle with Twitter, Musk has also cited claims of lax security measures made by a whistleblower and the company’s former security chief.
Meanwhile, Twitter users in India may have to wait a little longer before they can use the edit button. Twitter has yet to announce plans to launch the subscription service in India, and it is unclear whether the edit button will be made available across the entire platform.
