Twitter tests long-awaited edit button
Twitter announced Tuesday that it will soon experiment with an edit button, but initially only on its monthly subscription service.
The inability to optimize tweets after they’ve been fired has been a major complaint among users of one-to-many messaging platforms.
News that the company will begin testing editing features on Twitter Blue comes after newly appointed board member Elon Musk conducted an online poll.
In a tweet, Musk asked people if they wanted an edit button on Twitter. Nearly 4.4 million votes were cast, with about 73 percent saying “yes.”
According to Jay Sullivan, the company’s head of consumer products, “editing” has been the most popular Twitter feature “for years.”
“People want to be able to fix (sometimes embarrassing) mistakes, typos, and trending topics in the moment. They’re currently bypassing that with takedowns and retweets,” Sullivan tweeted.
The San Francisco-based internet company said it will begin testing in the next few months to see how well it works in letting users modify posts after they go live.
With Twitter Blue, users can pay a monthly subscription fee of $3 to access special content or features.
According to the company, Blue is available in the Twitter app on Apple or Android smartphones in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US.
Twitter also announced Tuesday that Musk would be joining its board, boosting hopes that the eccentric entrepreneur will improve the social media company’s prospects – even as some observers doubt the billionaire’s influence .
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal called Musk “an ardent supporter and strong critic of the service, which is exactly what we need,” while Musk said he looked forward to “making significant improvements to Twitter” soon.
Musk, who also runs SpaceX and is the richest man in the world, announced Monday that he would buy 73.5 million shares of Twitter, or 9.2 percent of the company’s common stock.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who stepped down as CEO last year, has long been opposed to the “edit” button, which allows users to alter already widely circulated tweets and alter their meaning or context.
Sullivan addresses these issues in his contribution.
“Without things like time limits, controls and transparency of edited content, editors can be abused to alter recordings of public conversations,” he said, adding that the company’s priority was “the integrity of public conversations.”
