Is Twitter finally getting an edit button?

For over 15 years Twitter has held steadfast to its devotion to the first draft, misspellings and typos and all. While other platforms rolled out features that allowed its users to edit texts after the fact, Twitter maintained its love of the unvarnished first impression. That’s all coming to an end now. 

Fresh off the hell of Facebook’s recent edit button fiasco, Twitter has announced that it too will unveil an “Edit Tweet” feature that will finally – finally! – allow its 436 million active users to edit a tweet after it’s been published. 

Twitter addressed the change in a public statement on Sept. 1. 

“Edit Tweet is a feature that lets people make changes to their Tweet after it’s been published… We’re hoping that, with the availability of Edit Tweet, Tweeting will feel more approachable and less stressful. You should be able to participate in the conversation in a way that makes sense to you, and we’ll keep working on ways that make it feel effortless to do just that.”

The last time the social media giant made such a drastic change to its format was in 2017 when it upped the allotted character limit per tweet from 140 to 280. Since then it’s also tinkered with features such as Fleets, which kept tweets alive for only 24 hours, similar to stories on Snapchat and Instagram; the feature was scrapped shortly after being introduced. Currently, the platform has Circles, a feature that allows users to choose a select number of followers to see tweets of their choice. 

But the Edit Tweet feature will take the cake when it comes to revolutionary changes made on the platform. Here’s what you should know about it. 

How does the Edit Tweet feature work?

Twitter’s 15-year hesitancy to incorporate an edit button comes in part due to concerns over the spread of misinformation. To combat this, the platform has decided to give its users only 30 minutes to edit a tweet after it’s been published, and for transparency’s sake will allow users to see what edits have been made. 

Edited tweets will come with a label showing that the tweet has been edited, similarly to Facebook. Additionally, clicking on that label will bring up the edit history. 

“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.”

Additionally, Twitter’s statement implies that only a limited number of edits will be allowed per tweet. In their words, “a few times.” 

So while the new feature brings a lot to look forward to, it also comes with some carefully placed caveats. Tweets will only be allowed to be edited “a few times”, and people will be able to see what edits were made. For some, it might better serve them to just delete the post entirely, depending on how embarrassing it is. 

When can I use the new Edit Tweet feature?

As of this writing the Edit Tweet feature is being tested by Twitter employees first, so you won’t see it on your page yet. 

After some internal testing, Twitter will roll out the feature to its paid Twitter Blue subscribers. Then, it will make it available to the public. 

The company has not laid out the dates for its timeline, so it could be weeks or months until the public get their hands on the feature. Or should we say thumbs? In the meantime it’s best to keep a watchful eye on the keyboard whilst typing. Those typos are not going anywhere yet.