Twitter is testing an Edit button; Musk buys 9.2% of its share
On April Fool’s Day, Twitter posted a tweet saying, “we are working on an edit button.”
Many believe that it was part of an “April Fools” prank. However, Twitter confirmed that the tweet published during that day was certainly not a joke. Aside from that, they also noted that they started working on it last year.
Twitter has also made it clear that upgrading the feature had nothing to do with Elon Musk’s Twitter poll or his demand. This, of course, follows an announcement revealing Musk as the largest shareholder and now currently sits on its board.
Twitter announced this week that they have started developing a feature that allows users to edit their 280-character messages on the platform.
Twitter Blue
In the coming months, Twitter will test this feature on its paid service, Twitter Blue. That way, they can find out what works and what doesn’t. But, Twitter spokesperson Catherine Hill declined to comment on whether an edit feature might be made available to everyone.
Jay Sullivan, the company’s vice president of consumer products, tweeted Tuesday that editing has long been one of Twitter’s most requested new features, with users seeking to fix mistakes, typos, and hot takes.
“Adding an edit button would likely change the nature of Twitter, making it less valuable as a historical warehouse that stores official statements by politicians and other high-profile people.”
Social media expert Jennifer Grygiel made a statement regarding the change, saying, “Twitter is the de facto news wire.”
Moreover, she suggested giving users a time window to edit their tweets before publishing them. A feature that could destroy evidence of original statements “if users edit controversial or important tweets.”
“Letting powerful Twitter users edit their tweets means they would not be historical statements anymore. We need to think about what the implications are, what these tweets are, who has power.”
In response, Twitter posted a tweet saying, “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. Protecting the integrity of that public conversation is our top priority when we approach this work.”
Elon Musk buys Twitter
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), disclosed that he owns 9.2% of Twitter. He becomes the platform’s largest shareholder – which triggered an almost 26% increase in Twitter shares.
In the Poll, Musk asked his followers if they wanted an edit button in which more than 4 million people had voted as of Tuesday evening.
Musk also tweeted that he was looking forward to making “significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”
Musk also agreed that the “proposal for a post-publication edit window of a few minutes sounds reasonable.”
