Twitter says it’s testing Edit button with select users

Micro-blogging platform Twitter finally said on Thursday that it is testing the Edit button after much speculation. The site is testing the feature with select users and Twitter Blue users over the next few weeks. It hasn’t, however, given a timeline for a launch. The idea is to start rolling out the ‘Edit’ to select users over the next few weeks to test how the product works and resolve any potential issues in the product before it is rolled out to the public.

“The test will be localized to a single country at first and expand as we learn and observe how people use Edit Tweet. We’ll also be paying close attention to how the feature impacts the way people read, write, and engage with Tweets,” the company said in a statement.

Twitter Blue, a premium offering of the company, allows users of the service early access to new launches by the company. As per Twitter, the edit feature being tested right now will allow users to edit their tweets “a few times” within 30 minutes of it being sent out.

“Edited Tweets will appear with an icon, timestamp, and label so it’s clear to readers that the original Tweet has been modified. Tapping the label will take viewers to the Tweet’s Edit History, which includes past versions of the Tweet,” Twitter said in a statement.

The company said that the time limit of 30 minutes and the tweet’s version history was important to be displayed to “protect the integrity of the conversation and create a publicly accessible record of what was said”.

Earlier this year in April, Twitter’s communications team had, in a tweet said that the company had been working on an edit button since 2021.

“We’re kicking off testing within @TwitterBlue Labs in the coming months to learn what works, what doesn’t, and what’s possible,” a tweet from the social media intermediary’s communications team had read.

The new feature, Twitter said, was intentionally being by a small group of users to incorporate the feedback in the final product and resolve any potential issues before it is rolled out for everyone on the platform.

The call for the edit button has been a long pending demand from several Twitter users, including Elon Musk, who has launched and aborted his plan to buy the social media intermediary for $44 billion.

On April 5, a day before the communications team of Twitter had confirmed the company’s plans on the edit button, Musk had sent out a poll in a tweet, asking users if they wanted an edit button.

Parag Agrawal, then newly appointed as the chief executive officer of Twitter, had, quoted Musk’s tweet and asked people to vote carefully as the “consequences” of the poll could be important.

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