The current character limit will be increased significantly, the platform’s CEO has indicated
A phone screen displays a photo of Elon Musk with the Twitter logo shown in the background, on October 4, 2022, in Washington, DC. © OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP
The character limit for Twitter posts will increase from 280 to 4,000, the platform’s boss Elon Musk confirmed on Sunday, without providing any further details.
When asked by one user whether it is “true that Twitter is set to increase the characters from 280 to 4,000?” Musk replied, “yes.”
The billionaire has voiced similar plans before. In late November, he said the expansion of the character limit to 1,000 was on his “to-do list.” Around the same time, he described a user plea to put the threshold at 420 as “a good idea.”
The brevity of Twitter posts is considered to be one the platform’s signature features, with heated discussions raging among social media users on whether it should be changed.
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At the time of its inception in 2006, Twitter’s character limit amounted only to 140 characters for one post, with another 20 reserved for the username.
In November 2017, the social media giant began allowing 280 characters per message, citing a disparity in tweet length between different languages. It also admitted that the restriction curbed users’ ability to express their thoughts.
Since Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter in late October, he has embarked on a flurry of reforms to reshape the social media platform. In recent months, the billionaire, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has unbanned several high-profile figures, including former US President Donald Trump. In late November, Twitter also rolled back its policies that sought to tackle misinformation linked to Covid-19.
More recently, Musk released the so-called ‘Twitter Files’ detailing the company’s censorship efforts. The first batch of documents showed how the social media giant made its decision to restrict the New York Post’s reporting on a trove of data from the laptop of Hunter Biden, the son of the incumbent US president.
The second release showcased concerted efforts by the platform to reduce the “visibility” of some users and limit their reach. Following the revelation, Musk promised that users would eventually be able to see their “shadowban” status.
