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By Jack Beresford
Senior Reporter
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Twitter has confirmed it has begun testing a much-anticipated Edit Tweet feature on the social media platform, causing mixed reactions among users.
A tweet posted on the company's official account earlier today announced the news. "If you see an edited Tweet it's because we're testing the edit button," it read. "This is happening and you'll be okay."
Twitter elaborated further on its plans for the Edit Tweet feature in a blog post outlining the company's plans for testing the new function. The post revealed that the function is currently being tested "internally" with a view to expanding the test to Twitter Blue subscribers "in the coming weeks."
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Twitter Blue is an opt-in, paid monthly subscription service that is offered by the company and includes exclusive access to premium features. According to the Twitter blog post, the Edit Tweet feature means that tweets "will be able to be edited a few times in the 30 minutes following their publication."
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"Edited Tweets will appear with an icon, timestamp, and label so it's clear to readers that the original Tweet has been modified," the company said. In this sense, the feature will function in much the same way the Facebook edit post option does with viewers able to access the "Tweet's Edit history" by tapping on the tweet's label.
This history will include all previous versions of the original tweet. In the blog, Twitter stressed the "important role" of creating a time limit on any edits and offering users access to a "version history" of the original tweet.
"They help protect the integrity of the conversation and create a publicly accessible record of what was said," the company said.
The initial internal testing will involve a "smaller group" who will be tasked with identifying any potential issues including, Twitter said, "how people might misuse the feature."
The plan is to then expand the testing of the Edit Tweet function to Twitter Blue subscribers later this month. "The test will be localized to a single country at first and expand as we learn and observe how people use Edit Tweet," Twitter said. "We'll also be paying close attention to how the feature impacts the way people read, write, and engage with Tweets."
The company said it hopes the new function will help make tweeting feel "more approachable and less stressful"—"You should be able to participate in the conversation in a way that makes sense to you, and we'll keep working on ways that make it feel effortless to do just that."
The news sparked a wave of responses from Twitter users. Some were skeptical.
"Welp, It was fun while it lasted," one person tweeted. "Twitter was special because it was immutable."
"I'm highly skeptical about this feature," a second Twitter user wrote. "It could very likely cause more harm than good if not implemented appropriately."
A third tweeted: "Not having an edit button is what makes Twitter special and tweets reliable."
Others were more positive about the plans though. "How is anyone against this?!?!?" one asked. "Most times once I hit send I realize, dammit I screwed up."
Another agreed: "This is going to be massive for me."
A third Twitter user commented: "pretty much every other platform has this feature, Im confused why folks think having it on Twitter will alter life as we know it."
"This latest development goes against the previous claims of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who appeared to dismiss the idea during an interview with Wired in 2020.
During the video Q&A, Dorsey was asked if there would ever be an edit button for Twitter. He responded: "The answer is no. We started as an SMS, text message service. And as you all know, when you send a text, you can't really take it back. We wanted to preserve that vibe, that feeling, in the early days."
Though Dorsey acknowledged there were "considerations" to be made for editing tweets with typos and broken links, concerns over the potential for editing content to mislead people meant he felt the company would "probably never do it."
Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour was similarly non-committal when asked about the idea in 2019, though he did suggest it would become a feature "at some point."
Speaking at a press event in San Francisco, he told Tech Crunch: "Honestly, it's a feature that I think we should build at some point, but it's not anywhere near the top of our priorities. That's the honest answer."
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