You want to tweet about your shiny new Galaxy S22, but you type “Just hot my new Galazy S22!” This happens to the best of us, but Twitter doesn’t give you the ability to fix those errors. However, shortly after Elon Musk bought 9.2% of it, Twitter is finally adding in an edit tweet button.
This is something that Twitter users have been griping about for years. No one likes having typos in their social media posts. However, Twitter seemed resistant to letting people edit their tweets. What makes this worse is that other platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram let you do this.
But now, the edit tweet button is in the works
According to a tweet from the Twitter Comms account, (via The Verge) the company is now working on adding in the button soon. One notable thing that the tweet mentioned is that the company has actually been working on this since last year. Because of this, it’s already in the testing phase.
It also said, “no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll.” That line references the poll that Elon Musk posted recently. In it, he asked if people wanted to have an edit button. It doesn’t take a SpaceX rocket scientist to guess that the results favored adding in the button.
Twitter’s dilemma with adding in the button
Along with the tweet from Twitter Comms, the VP of consumer product Jay Sullivan also elaborated on what’s going on behind the button. He posted a five-tweet thread explaining why the company dragged its feet with this button. The main reason why deals with holding people accountable for the things they say on social media.
Having the edit button gives people the ability to change the things that they say on social media. If someone tweeted something hateful or hurtful or downright wrong, there’s an edit button to change it. “Without things like time limits, controls, and transparency about what has been edited, Edit could be misused to alter the record of the public conversation.”; this makes sense. Twitter, as per the tweet, wants to protect the integrity of the public conversation.
An easy solution to this would be giving people access to the original post just like YouTube. That way, people can still be held accountable for what they say.
If you’re wondering about when the edit tweet button will launch, don’t stop double-checking your tweets just yet. Right now, the company is beginning the testing phase, which means that it will be months before we see it in action. Right now, it’s being tested among Twitter Blue users, and there’s no word on whether it will be a Twitter Blue-exclusive or not.
2022-04-06 15:06:56