Twitter’s edit button has been leaked – here’s what it looks like

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Twitter broke our brains when it announced an edit button is in the works. Now, thanks to some intrepid app-divers, we’ve got a glimpse of what it could work like. That’s huge and shows that the feature is well-along its developmental cycle.

The biggest and loudest objections to the edit button all have one thing in common. They’re worried that bad actors would substantially change the content of a tweet after it has gained engagement.

That’s a valid worry, with social media being full of bots, disinformation, and trolls.

An in-progress version of the feature found by reverse engineer Nima Owji doesn’t exactly put those fears to rest. At the moment, it doesn’t look like there is an edit history.

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He was able to see where the Edit Tweet option shows up in the three-dot menu, and what the edit routine might look like.

Remember that this is an in-progress feature, so it might not look like this once it goes live. He also can’t save the edited tweet at this time.

That could be because Twitter’s engineering team hasn’t implemented it. Alternatively, Twitter could have a functional history option and hasn’t linked the two parts together yet.

READ MORE: Twitter’s upcoming edit feature is a bad idea – here’s why

Owji spoke to TechCrunch and said that Twitter doesn’t seem to edit the tweet, but creates another new tweet. That could indicate that the edit history will have a list of tweets, so new readers can see the entire history of corrections.

Code diver Jane Manchun-Wong also believes that Twitter will treat edited tweets as “new” versions of prior tweets and not completely overwrite the prior versions.

Jane Manchun Wong doesn’t stop there. She previously uncovered an early version of what Twitter’s edit button could look like, along with some of the functionality behind it. Check it out below:

And if you’re wondering what a tweet looks like after it’s been edited, well, here you go:

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Questions still exist over the edit function on Twitter. What happens if the original tweet gets deleted? Will Twitter delete the entire history of all its edited versions? Trolls using screenshots are already a problem. Will this mean more screenshots tweeted without the edit history?

READ MORE: How to edit a tweet on Twitter

We’ll have to wait and see what path Twitter decides to move forward on with the edit button.

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 at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.