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Twitter Inc will launch a hugely demanded edit button for its paid users in the coming weeks, announced the social media platform.
Users of the bird app have long called for the option to edit tweets after they are published in order to correct mistakes like typos.
Those requests have led to jokes online that Twitter would rather introduce any other product, such as newsletters, before giving users their top-requested feature.
Subscribers who pay $US4.99 ($A7.36) per month for Twitter Blue will soon be able to edit their tweets “a few times” within 30 minutes of publication, Twitter said in a blog post.
Nearly every other social media platform, including Meta Platform’s Facebook and Instagram, Reddit and Pinterest, have for years offered features allowing users to edit posts.
The San Francisco-based company is embroiled in a legal fight with billionaire Elon Musk, who is trying to back out of a $US44-billion agreement to buy Twitter.
In April, on the same day that Musk disclosed a 9 per cent stake in Twitter, he tweeted a poll asking his millions of followers whether they wanted an edit button. More than 70 per cent said yes.
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Twitter and its observers have debated whether allowing tweets to be edited could lead to harmful effects, such as the spread of misinformation.
Edited tweets will have an icon and time-stamp to display when the post was last edited.
Users will be able to click on the label of an edited tweet to view the edit history and previous versions of the post.
Twitter has experimented with versions of an edit button.
Subscribers of Twitter Blue, the company’s paid subscription product, currently have access to a feature that holds tweets for up to one minute, allowing users to review the tweet and “undo” it before the post is published.
Asked if the edit button would eventually be available for all Twitter users, a spokeswoman said Twitter was testi ng the feature to “anticipate what might happen if we bring it to everyone”.
With AAP. (Content has been tweaked for length and style.)
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
