Micro-blogging services like Twitter and Weibo have long enforced 140-character limits. Until now…
China’s most popular micro-blogging platform has finally abandoned character limits.
Sina Weibo had previously adhered to a 140-character cap for individual posts – just like Twitter – but scrapped the rule today.
The change doesn’t actually go live until January 28 – just over a week away.
According to China’s official news agency Xinhua, only “senior users” will be able to post lengthy messages initially. However, all users will gain access to the feature before the end of February.
At present,
It’s still less than Twitter however, which boasts upwards of 300 million monthly active users.
Some speculate that Twitter may be about to follow Weibo’s suit by abandoning character limits.
Earlier this month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote: “We didn’t start Twitter with a 140-character restriction. We added that early on to fit into a single SMS message.”
Sina Weibo is China’s largest microblogging service
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He continued: “It’s become a beautiful constraint…[but] we’ve spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it.”
“What if that…was actually text? Text that could be searched, text that could be highlighted – that’s more utility and power,” he added.
Do you think Twitter should scrap its 140-character post limit? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
