Twitter Bows to Long-Sought Request: an Edit Button

It's a major move for Twitter: The platform is finally caving to long-standing pleas from users and adding an edit button. As the New York Times snarks, it "has only been about 15 years, nine months, and 22 days since they started asking for that ability." Most tweeters, however, will have to wait awhile before being able to use what Twitter calls "Edit Tweet" in a blog post. The function will be tested internally first, then expanded to subscribers of Twitter Blue, who currently pay $5 a month for extra features. Twitter didn't say when, or if, the feature might be made available to its millions of regular users worldwide.

• The details: Edit Tweet will allow people to go back into their tweets within the first 30 minutes of posting to change them, per the Verge. "Think of it as a short period of time to do things like fix typos, add missed tags, and more," the company states in the blog.
• Visible changes: Any edited tweets will be marked as modified, and others will be able to click a button to see the original tweet and how it was changed, notes CNN.
• Bigger picture: Twitter is presenting it as a way to fix typos and minor mistakes, but TechCrunch notes that complications could arise when people make more substantive changes. As in, when someone alters their heat-of-the-moment take on a particular subject—a tweet that might even result in news stories being written about it—to something more milquetoast. Presumably, the beta testing will allow Twitter to understand how the function might be abused.

(More Twitter stories.)