Finally, Here’s Twitter’s Edit Button And It Will Likely Have History Tracking

Twitter's long-awaited edit button can already be enabled by some, but it won't allow you to edit your errant tweet quite yet.

Twitter has been front and center in its own Twitter drama as of late, as Elon Musk continues his quest to buy out the social media platform. One of the things that Musk has brought more attention to, is the desire of many for an edit feature. Yesterday, Dylan Roussel, a contributor to 9to5Google, tweeted that the edit button had already been enabled. However, it was not yet functional.

An edit feature has been a source of contention on Twitter for quite some time. Many users simply want to be able to fix small errors in tweets, without having to make a new tweet and then deleting the old one. But others worry that it will be abused by some when a tweet they have interacted with has its meaning completely changed by what is edited. To combat this from being an issue, it has been proposed that a feature could be added that notifies a user when a tweet they have interacted with is edited in any way.

In a separate tweet, Jane Manchun Wong posted that it appears "Twitter's approach to Edit Tweet is immutable." She goes on to say that "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."

Wong does say that it is not clear how a tweet's edit history will appear to users, or if the history will appear at all. However, if Twitter does go this route, it could be another way for the platform to address the concerns some have about the potential for the edit button to be abused.

Twitter has remained silent for the most part when it comes to an edit feature, other than acknowledging it has been working on one for the past year and it will roll out to Twitter Blue subscribers first. In an email response to The Verge, Anna Hubatsch, a spokesperson for Twitter, basically said there is nothing more to be shared at this time.