Twitter may be considering the unthinkable; dropping the current 140-character limit on tweets.
Reports on Tuesday claim founder and interim CEO Jack Dorsey is supporting plans to go back on the founding principle, enshrined since Twitter’s inception back in 2006.
Re/code sources say the company’s desperate efforts to stimulate user growth has led the social network to consider a drastic change in approach.
Those familiar with the matter aren’t clear on how the new tweets would look, but it will apparently be different to the tools that allow users to post longer blocks of text as images.
Whether the firm will simply up the amount of characters available to users or has another solution in mind remains to be seen, but going too far risks becoming even more Facebook-like.
The retweet option was recently expanded to allow users to post their own comments. Twitter also dropped the 140-character limit from Direct Messages last month, which had never quite made sense in the first place.
The report says Twitter has come close to pulling the trigger on the change before, but talk of change has resurfaced with greater support in recent months.
One unnamed employee reportedly said: “People have been very precious at Twitter about what Twitter can be and how much it can be evolved. Having Jack come in and say it’s okay makes all the difference in the world.”
How would you feel about Twitter allowing us to go over the limit? Share your thoughts below.
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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.