Twitter is rolling out the ability to edit tweets to Twitter Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the social network announced on Monday. The company says the edit button will roll out to Blue subscribers in the U.S. soon, but didn’t provide a specific launch date.
Twitter Blue subscribers in these countries can now edit their tweets for up to 30 minutes after posting. But users can only edit their tweets five times within this 30-minute time period. It’s possible that Twitter introduced these limits to stop people from abusing the feature by changing content drastically, while still giving users enough time to correct typos or add hashtags.
Once you edit a tweet, it will display a timestamp showing when the tweet was edited. People reading the tweet can tap the label to view the edit history of the tweet. When you’re scrolling through your feed, edited tweets will display a little pencil icon next to them to show others that the tweet has been modified.
Twitter previously told TechCrunch that it will observe how people use the edit button, and that the number of edits available to users in the approved time frame could change. The social network previously said it’s introducing the feature to paid users first to gather more feedback so that it can fine tune the edit button’s functionality accordingly. The edit button is arguably Twitter’s most requested feature, so it’s not surprising that the company wants to test it with a smaller group of people before launching it more widely. The limited release also gives Twitter the opportunity to see if people abuse the new feature, as it would give Twitter the time to implement additional safeguards if needed.
“With Edit Tweet, we’re hoping to make Tweeting easier and more approachable, giving people more choice and control in how they express themselves and how they contribute to the many conversations happening on Twitter,” the company said in a blog post last month.
The official launch of the edit button comes a month after Twitter said it would roll out the feature. Since then, the company has been testing the feature on its own accounts to show users what edited tweets will look like.
Twitter Blue is currently only available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. The social network hasn’t said when it plans to roll out the subscription plan to other countries — much less when it plans to roll out the edit button to the rest of its users.
Twitter’s edit button is rolling out to Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch
