Twitter finally lets you fix your typos, the Edit Tweet button is here. But there is a catch, you will need to be a Twitter Blue subscriber to use the feature.
In case you aren’t aware, Twitter Blue is a premium subscription that users in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. can opt in to. The Edit button for Twitter is currently available for Blue subscribers in the first 3 of these Countries, the social network says that it will roll out to users in the U.S. in the near future.
The edit button was initially teased by the company earlier this year, but many people dismissed it as an April Fools’ Day prank. However, it soon became obvious that the social media site was serious about the feature. Twitter Blue’s official account teased a preview of the feature last week, before announcing the news yesterday, and also shared some Tweets that illustrate how the new option works.
Media credit: Twitter
Twitter Edit button
Once you have posted a tweet, you have a time limit of 30 minutes to edit its contents, beyond which you will have to rely on the good old delete button to remove the message, and repost it. To edit a tweet, select it, click the three-dot button, and then click the “Edit Tweet” option.
This allows you to correct any typos or other mistakes that you may have made. It can also be used to tag other users, and to tag or reorder any media that you had shared. Twitter only allows you to edit a tweet up to 5 times. A page on the social network’s support website says that Twitter’s Edit button is only available for regular tweets, i.e. you will not be able to edit replies, retweets, threads, pinned tweets, etc.
When you have finished editing a tweet, click on the update button, and Twitter will apply the changes to the original tweet. It also preserves previous interactions with other users. Tweets that have been edited are marked with a pencil icon next to them, this serves as an indication for other people, including non-Blue users, to know that the original message has been edited. Twitter’s Edit button is supported on Android, iOS and desktop web browsers.
Edited Tweets also carry a label with the words “Last Edited”, followed by a timestamp. Clicking on the text will display the version history of the edited tweets. Interestingly, anyone can view the edited history of a tweet.
You can try it by clicking on an example tweet posted by Twitter Blue’s account.
This may appear rather odd, considering that one may actually think about editing tweets in order to correct errors that they may have found to be embarrassing, i.e. they would not want others to see their mistake. On the other hand, this move might actually be good for transparency.
It seems quite strange to lock a basic feature such as editing a Tweet behind a paywall that costs $4.99 a month.
Do you use Twitter Blue? Have you tried editing Tweets?
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