App sleuth Jane Manchun Wong offers a first look at the under-development feature
Even though it could seem like Musk’s planned acquisition of Twitter is what made the company finally seriously consider the long demanded edit button, the social network previously confirmed that it was working on the feature independent of any purchases. While it has yet to be released to the public, Twitter developers are hard at work adding bits and pieces to the code for testing purposes, and we’ve already seen first images and videos showcasing what the editing process will look like. Now, renowned app sleuth Jane Manchun Wong is following up with further imagery, showcasing edited tweets.
From the evidence gathered so far, edited tweets will behave much like they do on other platforms—Facebook, in particular, comes into mind. An edited tweet is marked with a small “Edited” note next to the date, which brings up the edit history when you click or tap on it. On a technical level, Wong previously reported that an edited tweet is actually a new tweet with its own unique ID, along with a list of any older tweets they replace. Older tweets will show a “There’s a new version of this Tweet” note, complete with a link to said updated tweet.
In her example, Wong only added an extra line saying “edit: soup*” but she clarifies that you can basically create a completely new tweet with different content, at least in the current testing phase. It’s clear that the feature is still very much under active development, as Wong additionally showcases that videos are turned into images when a tweet is edited, and that media is re-uploaded under a new ID instead of Twitter reusing the asset already available on its servers.
While editable tweets are controversial due to their ability to retroactively change a tweet and the subsequent discourse, it seems that Twitter’s approach could combine the best of both worlds in the end. Edited tweets are clearly marked for anyone who is on the lookout for changed statements, complete with a history, and those who just want to correct a typo real quick can easily do so, without copying, deleting, and re-posting a new tweet.
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