Twitter is working on an edit button soon| Slickmagnet

The company has announced that it has been working on this new feature since last year and that it will first reach users of Twitter Blue, the paid version of the social network.

Sixteen years have passed, but finally, Twitter has decided to meet one of the oldest demands of social network users: tweets can be edited after publication.

Since 2006, the only way to “correct” a tweet with typos or that you want to modify for any other reason was to delete it and write it again. The company led by Parag Agrawal has announced that it will test the feature in the coming months on Twitter Blue , the paid version of the social network that includes premium features such as previewing a tweet before publishing it and is available only in Canada, Australia and USA.

The announcement comes after Elon Musk became the platform’s majority shareholder last Monday after acquiring 9.2% of its shares. That same day, the world’s richest man launched a poll on Twitter asking his more than 80 million followers if they wanted an edit button on the platform. More than four million users mainly responded, 73%, yes.

Source: Twitter

Despite appearances, the announcement made by Twitter indicates that the platform has been working on this function since last year and that “we did not get the idea from a survey “, alluding to Musk’s tweet.

Jay Sullivan, Twitter Consumer Product Manager, explained that “editing has been the most requested feature on Twitter for many years. People want to be able to fix sometimes embarrassing bugs, misprints and hot-buttons.” 

But he has also warned of the risks of an edit feature, noting that “without things like a time limit, controls and transparency over what has been edited, Edit could be misused to alter the record of public discussion. Protecting the integrity of the public conversation is our highest priority.”

Toning down some of the hype generated by the announcement among platform users, Sullivan has said that the implementation of the edit feature ” will take time ” and that “we will be actively seeking input and adversarial opinions before the launch of Edit.”