Change is the only constant. Twitter administration has finally accepted the much-awaited demand of Twitter users. It has officially announced the test of the edit feature on its platform. This new change has brought many speculations on how it will be available, what changes it may lead to, and what can be its hits and misses, or pros and cons. However, for sure this new feature will drastically change the micro-blogging site and user experience once and for all.
Twitter Edit button
On the 1st of September, Twitter Blue made the surprising announcement of testing an edit button feature through a tweet, in which it attached a picture demonstrating how the edited tweet would look like.
https://twitter.com/TwitterBlue/status/1565323599480774657
Later, this new development was confirmed by Twitter’s main handle.
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1565318587736285184
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As per media reports, Users will get up to 30 minutes to edit their tweets that are lengthy and have some typos or mistakes. It is assumed that the time allotted will be enough to amend changes that could otherwise spark controversies or may go viral for the wrong reasons.
The edit button of Twitter is in the testing phase. This will be a premium feature and would be available for paid subscribers. Users will have to pay a monthly subscription fee of 4.99 USD to subscribe to Twitter Blue. However, the time for its actual rollout has not been specified by the Twitter administration.
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How to see the edit history of the modified tweet?
However, this announcement has given air to many speculations. Users have started raising queries as to how the edited tweet’s original text could be read.
As per TechCrunch, reverse engineer Jane has explained how users can view the original content of the edited tweet, stating that with the help of this feature, users will be able to create a new tweet with different content. However, for the purpose of transparency, edited tweets will appear with an icon, timestamp, and label so that it becomes clear to the readers that the original tweet has been modified.
This will be ensured by adding a label (alongside an icon of a small pen or pencil) at the bottom of the tweet. The label’s text will say ‘Edited.’ Users will be able to watch the edit history of the tweet by clicking on this edited label.
It is important to note that the founders of the site were opposed to this move from the very beginning. They have always turned down such requests vehemently. This stand of Twitter admins was authenticated by a report published in, The Verge. It claimed that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had categorically said that Twitter would ‘probably never‘ introduce the feature of ‘edit button’. However, there was a widespread demand from rabid Twitter users.
International outlet Bloomberg stated that Twitter was deliberating the pros and cons of the edit button for years, in which the founders were averse to the idea. Bloomberg emphasised that this demand gained steam, when Elon Musk, a stakeholder of the Twitter carried out a poll asking users whether they want an edit button. The result was an empathetic yes!
Twitter has debated the pros and cons of an edit button for years.
It snowballed earlier this year when Elon Musk took a large ownership stake in the company, then polled his followers on whether they wanted an edit button. Most people said yes https://t.co/my2TizKRxp
— Bloomberg (@business) September 1, 2022
Many users are ecstatic in this move. It is evident that it will have several advantages like allowing users to amend silly typos, and grammatical or punctuation mistakes that would otherwise give the text a completely different meaning than its intended purpose. This will be a paradise come true for language geeks or infamous as ‘Grammar Nazis’.
However, on the flip side, we can’t disregard the potential drawbacks it may bring. So, without being biased with or against this massive change, we have analysed a few probable downsides of this move.
Advantageous or an Invitation for trouble?
By now, you must have realised that the initial ideology of the site was dead against this move. The admins didn’t want to change the USP (unique selling point) of the platform which made twitter what it has now become, a giant social media platform.
Apparently, it was claimed that Twitter had two main USPs. First, it was a crisp and short interactive space to express one’s ideas and thoughts. Twitter admins wanted users to express themselves without beating the bush on the platform.
This was seen as a communication medium for crisp conversation without letting people write epics. This gave users to engage in interactive conversations without having to trouble themselves with lengthy and tardy replies.
However, in 2019, Twitter increased the character limit from 140 to 280. This allowed users to be more expressive while still avoiding unfamiliar non-standardised short hands. Although the platform’s main USP suffered a hit, it became more interactive and gained truckloads of new users.
Second, a platform with some standardised conversation level to not compromise on the quality of content. Now with this new adjustment, it is a possibility that it can make the platform take a hit in terms of standardised error-free (or lesser mistake), and will become more prone to a crappy meaningless erroneous junkyard.
The major concern of this change is that some notorious users may misuse this tool purposefully to spin the narrative in their favour. It is a possibility that tweets that go viral will be modified to fit their narrative and mass circulated through screenshots (to not let users see the history of the tweet) to set out anti-Hindu, anti-government, or even anti-India agendas.
In this way, it should be made sure that the potential of it being misused should be narrowed down as minimally as possible, or else the elated users would face troubling times ahead in terms of agenda setting and becoming prone to left-wing propaganda.
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