According to a Twitter blog post, “Tweets will be able to be edited several times within 30 minutes of being posted.” Edited tweets will appear with an icon, timestamp, and label so readers can clearly see the original Tweet has been edited.
Edit tags will include a full edit history, including versions of tweets that have been edited in the past. Twitter said it first tested editable tweets in a small group to catch any early problems, including preventing dishonest people from potentially abusing the feature.
Editing tweets will be expanded to some Twitter Blue users later this month once the initial internal testing is complete. “The test will initially be localized in one country and will expand as we learn and observe how people use edited tweets,” Twitter explained.
Jay Sullivan, Twitter’s vice president of consumer products, said earlier this year that editing tweets was “the most requested Twitter feature in years.” While it’s demanding, there’s also been a constant fear of abuse. Former CEO Jack Dorsey resisted the ability to edit tweets, saying in 2020 that Twitter “may never” add the feature.
Facebook, Instagram, Medium, and many other platforms have edit buttons, and there are not too many or too many examples of abuse. Meta’s former chief security officer, Alex Stamos, highlighted a cryptocurrency scam involving Facebook’s editing capabilities earlier this year, but it’s still a rare example.
Twitter is currently only talking about editable tweets for its Blue subscription, which recently increased its price in the US from $2.99 a month to $4.99 a month. This means we may not see the edit button ushered in for regular users anytime soon. Other features available to Twitter Blue subscribers include the ability to undo before tweeting, a customizable navigation bar, a list of trending articles to share with people you follow, and even an NFT hexagon profile photo.