After a long debate, social media giant, Twitter, has finally unveiled its edit button, which will be available to tweeps from September 1.
Announcing this on Thursday, Twitter said, “If you see an edited Tweet it’s because we’re testing the edit button.”
The bird app further said that the edit button function is to “fix typos, add missed tags, and more.”
According to Twitter, a user will be able to edit their tweets “a few times” within 30 minutes of sharing tweets with their followers.
It further revealed that Tweets that have been edited are marked with a tag indicating when they were last altered.
However, only paid Twitter subscribers(Twitter Blue) will be the first users to access the new feature after the test round.
The blog noted that a small group has been chosen to test the feature in its early days and the company will monitor how the feature is used or abused.
Twitter’s blog says the expansion of the edit feature to Twitter Blue subscribers will happen “later this month.”
Twitter Blue users “localized to a single country” will be part of the testing phase.
Users who come upon edited tweets will be able to view the post’s history of changes.
Twitter introducing an edit button comes with much suspicion and contention from users.
Users have expressed concern that tweets they like or retweet will be edited to have their context or meaning stripped.
“So will likes/retweets be removed if tweet is edited? I’d like to reevaluate if I still like a tweet after it’s been changed,” one user shared.
“There’s no way to implement an edit button without opening up ways for online abuse,” another posted.
Other users were happier about the prospect of being able to rework a post.
“I am a pretty strict follower of ‘type tweet, hit send, proofread’ workflow, so this is a big day for me,” a user posted.
On April 1st, the official Twitter account wrote “we are working on an edit button” – sharing the idea on April Fools Day suggested it was a joke.
But this time, the company seems as though they are genuinely planning to make the feature widespread one day.
Twitter’s General Manager of Consumer and Product Revenue Jay Sullivan took to the bird to confirm the new feature’s introduction.
“We’re really doing it, everyone. We’re testing Edit,” Sullivan wrote.
“This is one of many features we’re exploring to help people join the global conversation on their own terms.”
