Twitter has announced a long-awaited feature: the ability to edit tweets. The company said that once the feature is available, users will be able to edit their tweets up to 30 minutes after publication. However, there is a catch: users can only edit their tweets five times within this period.
While this limit seems like enough to fix typos, upload media files, or add some tags, the company might have introduced it to prevent people from abusing the feature by changing tweet content on a whim. The social media firm said that it is currently looking at user behavior and that the number of edits available to users in the approved time period could change.
The "edit tweet" function will be available first for users who pay for the optional Twitter subscription Blue, but will not initially roll out to all paid users. Twitter confirmed that New Zealand subscribers will first get the feature and it will then be pushed to Twitter Blue users in Australia, Canada and the US once they learn more about usage patterns. Therefore it is subscribers in these three countries may have to wait a little longer and use the service without the feature of marquee.
After the company laid out its plans for the edit button, experts opined that the tool could be used to spread political misinformation or crypto scams. But those cases will only come to light once a larger group of people start using the feature on a regular basis. It's too early to decide if the feature will become a threat or just an option for people to fix their silly typos.
