Twitter has announced its intention to launch the ability to edit tweets after they are posted, after years of debate about whether the feature is a good idea for a platform known for spreading information quickly.
The tweet editing feature will be available soon in the coming weeks for users who pay $4.99 per month and subscribers to Twitter Blue, according to Bloomberg.
Twitter will allow users to make changes to their tweets for up to 30 minutes after they have been posted, and users will also be able to click to see previous versions of a tweet.
Twitter said in a blog post published today, Thursday, that the modified tweets are being tested internally, and that the feature will expand to subscribers of paid services later this September, and users outside the test group will also be able to view the modified tweets on the platform.
The site announced in April 2022 that it had been testing the tweet editing feature for a year, and that it would be available to Twitter Blue subscribers within months.
The announcement came on the same day that Twitter announced that it would add Elon Musk to its board of directors, and after he conducted a poll of his followers about whether they wanted an edit button on the platform, then Twitter confirmed that the editing feature was working, and the company confirmed at the time that it did not get the idea From a survey conducted by Musk.
And while many people have been calling on Twitter for years to add an edit button — which competitors like Facebook and Instagram are offering — others have raised concerns about the potential effects of such a feature.
And safety experts asked: What if a harmless, viral tweet spreads and then is modified to include harassment or misinformation, increasing the reach of a tweet that would not otherwise spread?
Returning to the Twitter blog, the social network indicated that the test would allow tweets to be edited “multiple times” for up to 30 minutes after they were first posted.
Edited Tweets will appear with an icon, a label, and a timestamp to show that they've been modified, and users can click to access a Tweet's Edit History to see previous versions.