The Twitter Edit Button Is Real - Here's Who'll Get It

Twitter has just dropped a bomb in the form of long-awaited (or in some cases, dreaded) news — the social media platform is introducing the option to edit tweets. Something as simple as editing has been a staple of most social media websites and apps for years, but Twitter resisted and remained firm in its stance that it won't be adding such a feature. It appears that is changing, though, for now, editing will only be available to a small portion of users . Adding an "Edit" button on Twitter is a surprisingly divisive matter. Some users have been asking for one for years, while some predict it to be a terrible idea and are firmly against it. Perhaps this is why it took Twitter so long to even entertain the idea. 

This news comes after Elon Musk tweeted a poll on his own account — shortly after becoming Twitter's largest shareholder, but prior to the announcement he'd joined its board — asking if people want an edit button. The company stealthily teased this announcement a few days ago by tweeting: "We are working on an edit button." As this was said on April Fools, most people didn't take it to heart. After all, the lack of editing features has been an ongoing joke on Twitter for years, but now, it will finally become reality. But is this option going to be a good change, or a bad one? And who's actually going to be able to use it?

Only those who use Twitter Blue, the company's monthly subscription service, will be able to use the controversial edit function at first. Considering how the platform works, the impact of users potentially being able to edit their posts at any given time could be good or bad. After all, tweets can be retweeted and responded to, so it's easy enough to edit a tweet to make someone else look bad based on how they interacted with it prior to the edit. There's a lot of room for abuse via gaslighting, but there are also reasons why a Twitter edit button may be a welcome addition. Something as simple as fixing a typo or a spelling mistake is reason enough to want an edit button. Amending a mistake could now be fixed with a simple 10 second edit instead of creating a thread. There's a lot of potential for memes and jokes to be made around the edit button as well, which users will undoubtedly take advantage of if and when the feature is released site-wide.

For the time being, editing tweets is going to be limited to those who pay for Twitter Blue, and that's a fairly small sample of users. The subscription service is only available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and every country has its own pricing. Twitter said it's going to be testing what works, what doesn't, and what's possible over the next few months before potentially moving to the next stage of introducing the feature.

As mentioned above, the announcement comes after Elon Musk joined the Twitter's board of directors. Other than the fact that Musk has invested heavily in Twitter, it's hard to deny that he is an avid user and critic of the platform. Musk himself, as well as his various business ventures, all use Twitter very frequently, therefore it's not a surprise that the edit button debate has reached Musk's ears. Musk sparked a debate about the edit button by sharing a poll, asking his followers to vote on whether they wanted the feature to be added or not. Over 70% voted yes, and the next day, Twitter made its announcement. Funny as it may be to assume that Musk alone made Twitter change its mind, it's quite unlikely. The platform even jokingly clarified in its announcement: "No, we didn't get the idea from a poll."

As the feature begins to roll out to a larger pool of users, it will be interesting to see whether it'll be used for fixing spelling mistakes or covering up jokes that never should have been made. Twitter hasn't specified how long exactly it plans to test the edit button.