Twitter confirms that it is working on an edit button and will start testing it with select users in the coming months.
The announcement was made last night after Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Twitter’s largest contributor, made headlines for polling his followers about adding an edit button.
Do you want an edit button?
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022
As expected, the results were overwhelmingly in favor of the edit button.
Musk was recently appointed to Twitter’s board of directors after buying a 9.2% stake in Twitter shares last Monday.
Its location may allow it to influence the inclusion of new features. However, Twitter reveals that an edit button is already in operation.
While Twitter has acknowledged the poll, which received more than four million votes, it says the editing feature has been in development since last year.
Now that everyone is asking…
Yes, we’ve been working on feature editing since last year!
No, we didn’t get the idea from the survey 😉
We’re starting the tests inside @employee Testing features in the coming months to see what works, what doesn’t, and what is possible.
TwitterComms April 5, 2022
Twitter will first test the edit button with premium Twitter Blue subscribers before rolling it out to everyone.
As a testing ground for new features, Twitter Blue Labs allows the company to experiment while providing additional value to its premium members.
Through Twitter testing, it can determine how to implement the edit button in a way that minimizes negative impact on the user experience.
There are a number of variables to consider, such as:
- How long will users have to edit a Tweet?
- How many times can a Tweet be edited?
- How will other users know when a Tweet has been modified?
An argument can be made against allowing users to edit historical tweets from years past. Although a five minute window where a newly posted tweet can be edited might make more sense.
All of this will be determined during the testing period, which Twitter says will begin in the coming months.
