An edit button is one of the most requested features for Twitter for quite a long time now, although that capability is still a no-show on the platform despite growing user demand. Reports about that feature first surfaced back in December 2013 when a number of Twitter employees anonymously disclosed the company's future plan to let users modify a tweet after it has been published. However, that edit button was supposed to be only visible for a limited period.
At a town hall event held at IIT Delhi today, Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey finally acknowledged that the social networking site has been discussing the idea of adding an edit button to the service. In response to a query from the audience, he said:
"We have been considering edit (button) for quite some time but have to do it the right way. We have to make sure that we are actually solving the predominant reason why people do it first and not make something that takes away from the public record, because I think it is really critical that we preserve it."
The feature will be especially useful to those who frequently commit minor spelling and grammar mistakes, for example, while composing a tweet, but Twitter needs to make sure it won't be abused. Dorsey offered several ways to achieve that, saying:
"There's a bunch of things that we can do to prevent this, either by showing a changelog or showing how a tweet has been changed. We are looking at all this stuff."
Dorsey also suggested that the ability to edit a published tweet will be subject to certain restrictions such as a short window of time. The idea is to preserve content and not let it be altered completely. That means it likely won't be possible to edit older tweets.
Source: Economic Times
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