Twitter to test longed-for edit button

San Francisco – Twitter introduced Tuesday it’s going to quickly begin experimenting with an edit button, however solely on its month-to-month subscription service at first.

The shortcoming to tweak tweets after firing them off has been a key criticism amongst customers of the social media platform.

Phrase that the corporate would begin testing an edit characteristic on Twitter Blue got here after newly named board member Elon Musk performed a web based ballot.

In a tweet, Musk requested if individuals needed an edit button at Twitter. Almost 4.4 million votes have been solid, some 73% of them saying “sure.”

“Now that everybody is asking … sure, we’ve been engaged on an edit characteristic since final 12 months,” Twitter posted on its communications account.

“No, we didn’t get the thought from a ballot,” it added, poking enjoyable on the Tesla boss.

In accordance with Jay Sullivan, the corporate’s head of shopper product, an edit button has been probably the most requested Twitter characteristic “for a few years.”

“Folks need to have the ability to repair (generally embarrassing) errors, typos and scorching takes within the second. They at present work round this by deleting and tweeting once more,” Sullivan mentioned in a tweet thread.

The San Francisco-based web agency mentioned it’s going to kick off testing in coming months to determine what works in terms of letting customers tinker with posts after they’ve gone reside.

Twitter Blue lets individuals pay a month-to-month subscription charge of $3 to entry particular content material or options.

Blue is on the market on the Twitter software for Apple or Android smartphones in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and america, in accordance with the corporate.

Twitter additionally introduced Tuesday that Musk will be part of its board, boosting hopes the eccentric entrepreneur will raise the social media firm’s prospects — though some observers expressed wariness over the billionaire’s affect.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal referred to as Musk “a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is precisely what we want,” whereas Musk mentioned he seemed ahead to quickly making “vital enhancements to Twitter.”

Musk, who additionally leads the SpaceX enterprise and is the world’s richest man, on Monday had introduced his buy of 73.5 million Twitter shares, or 9.2% of the corporate’s frequent inventory.

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter who stepped down as CEO final 12 months, had lengthy opposed an edit button on the premise that customers might change a tweet that had already been extensively shared, altering its that means or context.

Sullivan addressed these considerations in his posts.

“With out issues like cut-off dates, controls, and transparency about what has been edited, Edit may very well be misused to change the report of the general public dialog,” he mentioned, including that that firm’s high precedence is “defending the integrity of that public dialog.”

He famous that “it’s going to take time” to develop the edit characteristic and the corporate will likely be “actively in search of enter and adversarial pondering” prematurely of its launch.