LONDON: Twitter said Thursday it was testing a new edit button, a feature long demanded by users.
“If you see an edited Tweet, it's because we're testing the edit button. This is happening and you'll be OK,” the company tweeted.
The new feature, which is still in the trial stage and expected to be rolled out in the coming weeks, will only be available to some users.
“Later this month, the platform will be expanding Edit Tweet access to Twitter Blue subscribers. As part of their subscription, they receive early access to features and help test them before they come to Twitter,” the company said.
Subscribers to Twitter Blue, the premium version of the platform costing $4.99 per month, will soon be able to edit a tweet up to 30 minutes after posting.
The company emphasized that users would be able to track a tweet’s edit history to “protect the integrity of the conversation and create a publicly accessible” record of what was said.
“Tweets will be able to be edited a few times in the 30 minutes following their publication. Edited Tweets will appear with an icon, timestamp, and label so it’s clear to readers that the original Tweet has been modified. Tapping the label will take viewers to the Tweet’s Edit History, which includes past versions of the Tweet.”
Twitter Blue is available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and offers users additional features such as an “undo” option that allows users a 60-second window to change a posted tweet before it goes public, but the company said the edit button would initially be “localized” to a single country.
Although users have waited 16 years to get a feature that Twitter’s co-founder and former chief executive Jack Dorsey had deemed unnecessary and said it would probably never provide, some people remain skeptical about its introduction.
One user questioned the usefulness of the feature, saying the platform had long had a “superior edit button” called delete.
Twitter has long had a superior edit button called “delete” which allows you to remove a bad tweet and repost a better one without anyone being confused about what happened.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw)
Others said it was unnecessary or contrary to the spirit of the platform, raising their concerns and asking what safeguards were in place to prevent the function from being abused.
Wow! Finally!! This feature is long overdue!
Will be interested to see how this works and what safeguards are in place prevent it being abused.
— Rob Myers (@RobLMyers)
Experts voiced their concern and warned about the improper use of the feature, saying it might contribute to misinformation.
Daniel Angus, professor of digital communication at the Queensland University of Technology, said Twitter appeared to have responded “productively” to initial concerns about the feature being used in bad faith.
“The time limit on tweet edits and these transparency tools are good measures that sensibly address some of the potential for the edit feature to be used by bad faith actors to deliberately deceive,” he said. “Nothing can completely remove such a feature from being used in deliberately misleading ways though.”
Twitter first announced plans to introduce the new future back in April, after Elon Musk posted a poll on the platform asking users if they wanted an edit button.
Since then, Musk and Twitter have been locked in a legal battle after the Tesla CEO tried to exit a $44 billion deal to acquire the platform.
With agencies.
