Twitter tests long-awaited edit button for paying subscribers, here’s what to keep in mind

This comes after years of debate both internally and externally as to whether the “edit” feature was a good idea for a product known for making posts go viral.

The edit feature will soon be available to users who pay $4.99 per month for a subscription to Twitter Blue. 

Edited tweets will have an icon and timestamp to display when the post was last edited. Users will be able to click on the label of an edited tweet to view the edit history and previous versions of the post.

How will Edit feature work?

Twitterati who have access to the ‘Edit Tweet’ feature will be able to make changes to a tweet about 30 minutes after it is published. It appears Twitter is allowing multiple edits to a tweet during this 30-minute time limit.

Tweets that are edited will carry a label, and others on Twitter will be able to click on the label to see prior versions of the post.

In a blog post, the company said that it is specifically testing the edit button with a small group of users in hopes of quickly resolving possible issues. The edit button will then roll out to Twitter Blue users in the coming weeks.

Subscribers of Twitter Blue, the company’s paid subscription product, currently have access to a feature that holds tweets for up to one minute, allowing users to review the tweet and “undo” it before the post is published.

Twitter has debated the pros and cons of an edit button for years, with some worried that it will be abused by people hoping to go viral, only to change the content of a message after it’s been retweeted. 

Former CEO Jack Dorsey said as recently as January 2020 that an edit button was highly unlikely, but it was so widely requested that the company never made a definitive call on whether it would launch something.

That debate snowballed earlier this year when Tesla CEO Elon Musk took a large ownership stake in the company, then polled his followers on whether they wanted an edit button. The majority of those who voted said yes. 

Twitter quickly confirmed it was already testing the feature internally, and in an apparent effort to distance the project from Musk’s influence, clarified that it started work on an edit button before the Tesla CEO’s poll.

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