Twitter’s finally introducing an edit button to its interface, and is slowly updating users on its functionality and intricacies.
It honestly amazes me what Twitter was thinking, taking this long to introduce editing tweets to their interface. I follow the company’s train of thought well enough: Twitter isn’t just a social media platform catering to a selective niche of individuals. It’s a massive brand that regularly features people with socio-political sway and your everyday individuals engaging with each other on a unified front. Allowing the ability to edit one’s tweets means that people can easily backtrack on harmful discourse in an attempt to save face. Remember Rosanne Barr? She sure would have loved to have an edit tweet button nearby, just so she wouldn’t be outed as a racist and get swept out of her own show. However, my point is that this barely makes a difference. Such important individuals (read: potential offenders) have their tweets screenshotted the second they slip up. Twitter’s available across the world, there’s always someone awake to document another’s mistakes. There’s also the fact that such tweets can just be outright deleted. No one needs to edit their own racist rhetoric when they can outright delete it after a stern talking-to from their manager.
The ability to edit tweets is more often than not sought after just as a means to edit grammatical mistakes, or to add further clarity. Literally no one is being enabled in their views by the lack of editing. Therefore, I find the lack of an edit button just limiting. A version of this feature already exists on the platform as well, but is only available to Twitter Blue members. Undo Tweets allows users to undo a tweet that they’ve immediately written, in order to rectify errors or tidy up information. Editing will work in a similar manner. Screenshots from social media journalist Alessandro Paluzzi reveal that users will only be allowed to edit their content within half an hour (i.e. 30 minutes) of it being posted. After that, it’s either the Delete bin or minor to major ridicule.
Observing users will also be able to identify whether or not a tweet has been edited. A new icon in the shape of a pencil will be spotted right next to the date of posting that typically accompanies tweets on the right hand side. Finally, users will also have an Edit History interface, from where they can access all of the corrections that they’ve made over time.
Read next: Twitter Issues New Ban On Ads That Misinterpret Matters Relating To Climate Change
In the timeline the icon will appear next to the date/time of the tweet 👀👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/eZvp5YBsbK
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) April 22, 2022
The ability to edit tweets is more often than not sought after just as a means to edit grammatical mistakes, or to add further clarity. Literally no one is being enabled in their views by the lack of editing. Therefore, I find the lack of an edit button just limiting. A version of this feature already exists on the platform as well, but is only available to Twitter Blue members. Undo Tweets allows users to undo a tweet that they’ve immediately written, in order to rectify errors or tidy up information. Editing will work in a similar manner. Screenshots from social media journalist Alessandro Paluzzi reveal that users will only be allowed to edit their content within half an hour (i.e. 30 minutes) of it being posted. After that, it’s either the Delete bin or minor to major ridicule.
ℹ️ You will be able to edit a tweet a limited number of times
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) April 23, 2022
Observing users will also be able to identify whether or not a tweet has been edited. A new icon in the shape of a pencil will be spotted right next to the date of posting that typically accompanies tweets on the right hand side. Finally, users will also have an Edit History interface, from where they can access all of the corrections that they’ve made over time.
#Twitter keeps working on the ability to edit tweets by adding the Edit History 👀 pic.twitter.com/ibImnPKeFn
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) April 21, 2022
Read next: Twitter Issues New Ban On Ads That Misinterpret Matters Relating To Climate Change
