Having to delete a tweet you sent out already because of a simple typo error can be really annoying, especially when the tweet is newsworthy and has gained a lot of engagements.
For years now, Twitter users have clamored for an edit button to tweets posted. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened. A lot of people, however, believed it was being worked on, and that it’ll happen at some point. But unfortunately, from what we’ve heard, it’s probably never going to happen.
In a video Q &A session with Wired, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, gave a shocking answer while responding to question, stating that Twitter will never have the edit button.
Why will Twitter never have the edit button?
Well, Jack, in the Q&A session explained that Twitter’s decision to not have an edit button goes back to the platform’s early days as a text messaging service. According to him:
“We started as an SMS, text message service. So, as you all know, when you send a text, you can’t really take it back. We wanted to preserve that vibe and that feeling, in the early days. But now, we have an app and a lot of people are using us on the web and there are some issues with edit that we can’t solve.”
From his reply, Twitter has considered the option of an edit button (a 30 second or 1-minute window to correct something) for people who want to fix a quick spelling error or a broken link. But in the end, he said: “we’ll probably never do it.”
Another reason; he talked about retweets. It wouldn’t make sense for users to share (retweet) a particular tweet and after an hour the content of the tweet has changed.
We know this clarification from Jack comes as shocking and is disappointing to some people, It’s not totally bad news. There is still a slim chance that it’ll happen. His reply “we’ll probably never do it” leaves a small window of possibility that the edit feature could still be considered in the future.
