Twitter is finally launching an edit button, after years of requests for this seemingly obvious feature.
The company has been debating the inclusion of this feature for years. The most obvious argument against it is that bad actors could tweet something that goes viral, only to completely change the message to something more nefarious.
To counter this, Twitter is adding a label to an edited tweet, showing it has been edited. User can click through and see all previous incarnations of the tweet. In addition, tweets can only be edited up to half an hour after initially being tweeted.
The feature is currently being tested by staffers, before being rolled out to the public. Editing will, however, come at a cost – with the feature available only to Twitter Blue subscriber who shell out $7.35 a month for the privilege.
Twitter creator and former CEO Jack Dorsey (above) was firm in 2020 when he said it was unlikely the platform would ever see an edit button.
“The reason there’s no edit button and there hasn’t been an edit button traditionally is we started as an SMS text messaging service,” Dorsey told Wired.
“So as you all know, when you send a text, you can’t really take it back.
“We wanted to preserve that vibe and that feeling in the early days.”