Micro-blogging site, Twitter, has confirmed that it is really working on an edit button, and would soon allow its users to edit a tweet after it has already been posted.
The company made this clarification via a tweet on its verified Twitter Comm handle, adding that the idea for the edit function was not gotten from “a poll.”
Twitter users have been clamouring for a function that allows them to edit tweets. With the edit button in place, Twitter users will be able to correct a typo without having to tweet a correction, or sacrifice likes and retweets, just to have a corrected tweet.
Jay Sullivan, Twitter’s VP of consumer product, said via a Twitter thread on Tuesday that edit button has been “the most requested Twitter feature for many years.” Sullivan added that the company has been looking into how to build the feature “in a safe manner” since last year.
“Without things like time limits, controls, and transparency about what has been edited, Edit could be misused to alter the record of the public conversation. Protecting the integrity of that public conversation is our top priority when we approach this work.” Sullivan tweeted.
Twitter’s announcement about the edit button comes the same day the company announced that new highest shareholder, Elon Musk, would be joining its board. Musk had recently committed $3 billion to own 9.2% of Twitter stocks, dwarfing former CEO, Jack Dorsey, who owns less than 3%.
Read also: Billionaire, Elon Musk, acquires 9.2% stake in Twitter, now one of the highest shareholders
Prior to the tweet confirming the edit button, billionaire, Elon Musk, had created a poll, asking his over 80 million followers if they want an edit button. The poll had over 4 million participants, with 73.6% voting yes.
Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, quoted Musk’s poll, adding how important the consequences of the poll will be, and asking his followers to “vote carefully.”
In the past, former CEO, Jack Dorsey, has shown his concerns about having an edit button for tweets. During a talk in 2018, Dorsey said that an edit button could let users change a tweet’s meaning after it gets widely shared. Dorsey said in 2020 that Twitter would “probably never” add the feature.
Confirming how serious the plan is this time, Twitter added that it is not joking, making reference to a prank pulled on April fool’s day where it claimed to be working on an edit button.