After years of users clamoring for this feature, Twitter is finally testing edited tweets.
Twitter said: Where else? — a tweet Thursday morning that some users may start seeing edited tweets in their feed because it’s testing the long-awaited edit button.
“This is happening and you’ll be fine,” the company said.
In a blog post Thursday, the company said edited tweets are being tested internally and that the feature would be rolled out to subscribers of its paid Twitter Blue service later this month. Users outside the test group will also be able to see edited tweets on the platform. Twitter said in April that it had been testing an editing feature for a year and that it would be available to Twitter Blue subscribers in a few months. The announcement came the same day the company announced it would add Elon Musk to its board and after polling its followers on whether they would like an edit button on the platform.
When it confirmed that the editing feature was in the works, Twitter also said: “no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll.”
While many people have been calling on Twitter for years to add an edit button, which rivals like Facebook and Instagram offer, others have raised concerns about the potential implications of the feature.
Security experts asked, for example: What if an innocuous tweet went viral and was then edited to include harassment or misinformation, increasing the reach of a tweet that otherwise would not have spread?
Twitter said in its blog post Thursday that in this test, tweets will be able to be edited “a few times” up to 30 minutes after they were first posted.
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Edited tweets will appear with an icon, label, and timestamp to make it clear they’ve been modified, and users can click on a tweet’s “edit history” to see previous versions.
“Like any new feature, we’re intentionally testing Edit Tweet with a smaller group to help us incorporate feedback as we identify and fix potential issues. This includes how people can misuse the feature.”