Twitter is actually working on an edit button

Twitter surprised everyone last night by announcing that it has been working on an edit button “since last year!” Yes, you’ll soon be able to test out editing your tweets after the fact; but only if you’re a Twitter Blue subscriber at first.

Twitter Comms also subtweeted Elon Musk, saying “no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll.” That’s likely in reference to the eccentric billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX’s tweet earlier this week which asked “Do you want an edit button?” while misspelling both the Yes and No answers.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for both Twitter and Musk. First Musk put up a provocative poll about if Twitter follows free speech principles.

READ MORE: How to edit a tweet on Twitter

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Then, an SEC filing made us aware that he now owns 9.2-percent of Twitter’s common stock, making him the largest individual stockholder in the company. That was shortly followed by the news that Twitter has added Musk to its board of directors.

Twitter has long been asked by its users for some form of an edit button. The microblogging site went a half step in that direction when its Twitter Blue subscription service started.

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READ MORE: A Twitter edit feature would be a wreck on a wreck

That feature gave paying customers a chance to delay tweets when sent, giving them time to re-read and fix any spelling errors.

Now Twitter Blue subscribers are going to get a full-fledged edit button. What exactly what that will look like is unclear right now. Twitter will have to balance usability, transparency, and other considerations when the edit feature goes live.

Until the edit button goes live, Twitter has another transparency issue to address. The company has changed how tweet embeds work; breaking news reporting across the internet.

This is a “classic case of ‘link rot‘” according to The Verge, and we can’t disagree. We can only hope Twitter either reverses this change or adds a tool to generate downloadable images from individual tweets.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.