Twitter recently announced that it is officially working on the edit button, a long-coveted feature that would let users erase embarrassing mistakes and typos. While many users welcome it, critics are worried that it could be abused by bad actors to manipulate and mislead, though now it’s revealed that Twitter may have a solution to that potential problem.
Reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong explains that the edit feature may be “immutable”. Instead of changing a tweet after it’s been edited, it will post a new tweet along with a list of the previous versions of the tweet, although even she still doesn’t know what this will look like for users.
Looks like Twitter’s approach to Edit Tweet is immutable, as in, instead of mutating the Tweet text within the same Tweet (same ID), it re-creates a new Tweet with the amended content, along with the list of the old Tweets prior of that edit
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 16, 2022
App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi also revealed screenshots of Twitter’s edit feature, which shows that the edit button appears under the three-dot menu on the right side of tweets. Clicking on the option seem to take you to a tweet composer that is already pre-filled with your existing tweet and an “Update” button but notably, there doesn’t seem to be a tweet history function.
#Twitter is working on the edit button 👀 pic.twitter.com/684nQ5bhnF
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) April 15, 2022
Twitter hasn’t confirmed what the edit button will look like or how the whole feature will work to prevent people from altering public conversations, only that Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to test it in a few months. On a somewhat related note, the company is currently trying to prevent a hostile takeover from billionaire Elon Musk shortly after he shot down an offer to join Twitter’s board.
(Source: Jane Manchun Wong/Twitter)
