Slashdot Mirror


Jack Dorsey Says Twitter Needs An Edit Function (buzzfeed.com)

Twitter is considering an edit function for tweets. In a seemingly impromptu chat on his platform Thursday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey gave hope to those who have long advocated for the feature, telling one user that "a form of edit is def needed" and another that an edit function is something the company is "thinking a lot about." From a report: The demand for an edit button has become something of a meme on Twitter. After seemingly every new Twitter product announcement, many of the platform's users respond with some form of "Yes, but still no edit button?" Meanwhile the feature has become standard in competing platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

75 comments

  1. Hmm... familiar by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Funny

    What other platform do we know of that needs an odit feature? Let me think... let me think...

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    1. Re:Hmm... familiar by msauve · · Score: 1

      Twitter supports Unicode, what are they complaining about?

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:Hmm... familiar by magarity · · Score: 1

      I gave up wishing for an edit feature here before Twitter was even founded.

    3. Re:Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Fuck you. You post it, you own it.

    4. Re:Hmm... familiar by Obfuscant · · Score: 1
      There is an edit function. I'm using it now. You get a box to type text into, and you can go and edit it, and then you can preview it to see what it looks like. How much more editing do you need? You want to edit what has already been posted instead of thinking about what you say before you post it. I understand. But you are told as soon as you submit -- if you don't like what you see online you should have previewed.

      As for an "edit" button for twits. That's about as stupid as a "recall" button for email messages. Twitter is a push service. Email is a distributed push-to-the-final server service. Once you tweet, people see it and it is on their device. Once you email, it's on someone else's server.

      Yes, let's have a "recall" or "edit" for tweets, so that I can laugh as loudly at people who think they can recall a tweet as I do at those who think they can recall an email from my email client so I won't see whatever mistake it is they made.

    5. Re:Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. The reason there is no ability to edit after you hit submit is to prevent abuse where people go and change what they said to make responses seem inappropriate.

    6. Re:Hmm... familiar by pontoffel · · Score: 2

      I definitely agree with your sentiment, Anonymous Coward.

    7. Re:Hmm... familiar by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To be honest, I just couldn't resist the obvious tie-in joke. I'm actually fine without an edit button here on Slashdot. While I occasionally wish I could take back a dumb mistake I missed while proofreading, adding an edit feature also introduces a significant problem of replying to mutable content. Then to fix that, you have to add other hacks, like flags to show the post was edited, a history to show what was edited, notifying posters who replied in case the content changed, and so on. Ultimately, it's probably a lot more trouble than its worth.

      Editing is even more problematic for a push service, as you mentioned, whether it's recalling e-mails or editing tweets.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    8. Re:Hmm... familiar by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      Certainly not this site, as it completely ruins commenting if comments can be made to look bad by editing the shoot-from-the-hip post they commented on.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    9. Re:Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can take back a dumb mistake that you missed. Just post a follow-up owning up to the mistake and issuing a correction.

    10. Re: Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously, Slashdot.

      It is not so much a full EDIT but rather an ability to edit anything posted in the last 15 minutes for typos/auto-incorrects. Allowing a user to edit at-will would allow hacked (or administrators) accounts to be obliterated quickly, which is why most forum systems have a "last edited on (date)" footer to note when that post changed.

      That said, the largest reason not to have Edit buttons is to prevent "time travel" edits. Eg claiming something you said or didn't say by going back in the timeline and editing it. Hence why it is better to allow people to delete tweets that they no longer agree with (and are getting them a lot of cyber bullying) than to outright edit the context of a post and make it worse, and make those retweeting or quote retweeting the tweet no longer have the context either.

    11. Re:Hmm... familiar by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

      What other platform do we know of that needs an odit feature? Let me think... let me think...

      Twitter supports Unicode, what are they complaining about?

      Ya, but you should see their "beta" interface.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    12. Re:Hmm... familiar by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I gave up wishing for an edit feature here before Twitter was even founded.

      It's called "Preview" and if you don't use that opportunity to review and edit, then that's on you. Perhaps it would be easier for Twitter to support previewing than post-submit editing and make it an optional feature controlled by a profile setting.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    13. Re:Hmm... familiar by msauve · · Score: 1

      OMG!! Ponies!!!!!

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    14. Re: Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell, even 15 seconds would be fine. 15 minutes gets into "people already replied" territory.

    15. Re: Hmm... familiar by ChoGGi · · Score: 1

      Editable till replied to seems reasonable to me.
      If someone replies while you're editing then it sucks to be you.

    16. Re:Hmm... familiar by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Certainly not this site, as it completely ruins commenting if comments can be made to look bad by editing the shoot-from-the-hip post they commented on.

      You could reasonably have an edit feature here if it were locked out from the moment another user hits reply. If that user's comment form times out without saving and without anyone else replying, then you could unlock edit again. I still don't think it's a good idea (there is preview, if you care whether your comments are correctly edited them, edit during preview) but it could be done.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    17. Re:Hmm... familiar by magarity · · Score: 1

      The preview feature here didn't start until way after Twitter was even founded so my timeline is still correct. :/

    18. Re:Hmm... familiar by aevan · · Score: 1

      Or the comment is moderated. Here's to the +5 insightful "Frist Piss" comment (originally something smart).

      Just grant the user a 5 minute grace within which to edit - I've plenty of occasions I'd spy my error right as I hit save. An immediate edit would fix that, without allowing trolling posts to switch out content.

      Twitter would need to extend that to retweets though, and probably a few other conditions (I don't use twitter, so no clue)

    19. Re:Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot has had a post preview since at least 2006.

    20. Re:Hmm... familiar by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      If you want a 5 minute grace period, just delay the Submit button by 5 minutes.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    21. Re:Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "More trouble that it's worth" - Seriously?! It's elementary level programming. It can be done within a day with a reasonably skilled intern.

    22. Re:Hmm... familiar by fche · · Score: 1

      ha hah ahaha glorious

    23. Re:Hmm... familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So would be changing the Slashdot background to pink. But that would be even more trouble than it's worth.

      Technical implementation complexity being low does not mean doing it would be overall positive. That's what the GP was pointing out. The net result would be harder to read discussions on Slashdot, due to complex parallel edit history of comment threads that would result from such a simple change.

  2. There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" flag. by ZorinLynx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There needs to be a time limit for editing tweets. Five minutes is good. This keeps someone from going back and changing what they said long after they said it.

    There also needs to be a flag that tells people that the tweet was edited. This prevents modifying a tweet after people have already agreed with it, etc.

  3. The internet never forgets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's better to let people delete and repost, rather than letting people rewrite their public history.

    That said, the internet will archive and remember everyone's ridiculous tweets, no matter what Twitter does.

    1. Re:The internet never forgets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My thoughts similarly. There is exactly one difference between editing a tweet, and deleting and reposting.

      The timestamp.

      There is no legitimate reason to offer an edit function on top of the already-available delete function, other than to allow people to go "I never said anything racist, and certainly not 1 year ago. See? It even has the timestamp to prove it.".

    2. Re:The internet never forgets by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      You then get replies pointing to nothing. Fucking retarded idea.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  4. Edit but show history. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If a tweet is edited, the reader should be able to go back and see the complete edit history.

    If the user doesn't want to show the edit history, the user should have to use the standard "delete" function.

  5. and when the CEO edit's trump he will be sent off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and when the CEO edit's trump's ports he will be sent off to an camp!

  6. It's def needed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, it's def needed.

  7. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by 31415926535897 · · Score: 2

    Another option is to show the final, edited tweet as the default, but then show what the original(s) was/were by clicking on a history button. That way everyone can present their intended content as the default (e.g. fixing typos or punctuation), but it won't let someone completely alter their content and meaning with the intent to deceive.

  8. With no edit button... by istartedi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With no edit button, you have to *think* before you post, and own up to your mistakes. It isn't surprising that people are clamoring for edit.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  9. Slashdot has an edit feature. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It can be found here

  10. ALSO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should add downvote, upvote, and Karma... then just call it Reddit.

  11. twitter needs a revenue generating function by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Forget about tweet editing, it isn't going to make any more money with it.

  12. NO EDIT BUTTON! by Kevoco · · Score: 1

    If I have second thoughts about something I tweeted I delete it.
    If I feel the need to edit, I do the following: click on the tweet, Copy it, delete it, and then paste into a new message, making edits I feel necessary.

    1. Re:NO EDIT BUTTON! by mfearby · · Score: 1

      Exactly! If people can't be bothered to proof-read a mere 140 characters before clicking the Tweet button, then they don't deserve an edit facility. Get it right the first time, or delete it and repost. Sadly, though, reading what one has typed before clicking a button is a rare thing these days. Too many people seem not to have figured out that they are judged by the quality of what they write. Bad writing allows me to infer that you're an uneducated dimwit. At least it's a good way of identifying rubbish that doesn't need to be read to its conclusion (admittedly, not really a problem for Twitter, but it is in other places).

  13. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Twitter needs to flame out and shut down permanently. It's the equivalent to public urination and is rightly called the sewer of the internet. A pointless waste of time.

  14. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

    Highlight replies, retweets and likes that occur before any edit, so its obvious to observers without any interaction required that the reply, retweet or like was for a version other than the "All Jews must die!" a tweet was later edited to.

    If an edit is substantial or (and here is one for all you machine learning junkies out there) changes the context of the tweet ("I like kittens" becomes "the Jews deserved the holocaust"), then perhaps also notify anyone who has interacted with that tweet by means of reply, retweet or like so they can review the edit and ensure they havent been misled.

  15. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by pastafazou · · Score: 1

    or maybe develop a versioning system to go along with the edit button, so everyone can see what changed and when...

  16. Something is broken... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I haven't looked at my Twitter feed in years. When I did recently, I was shocked to discover I'm following a ton of porn bots. I spent a few hours removing those.

  17. FishEye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or maybe they could write a FishEye integration for Twitter.

  18. Would be fun! by blogagog · · Score: 2

    You could tweet, "I love [some new movie]. Retweet if you agree! Then, after a bunch of retweets, edit it to say "Retweet this message if you eat other people's boogers!"

    If the retweets would update, it could prove quite humorous for a day or two.

    1. Re:Would be fun! by lgw · · Score: 1

      "Retweet if Hitler did nothing wrong!", obviously.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  19. Great idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why not have voting with an edit function, too?

  20. DevOps hates this one weird trick! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2

    From an operational POV, I would hate going from an "everything is immutable; we only support insert and delete operations" to "mutate all the things and damn the caches!". It's an entirely different architecture. I can totally imagine the backend and ops teams saying sure, we can do this, as long as you understand it means we're launching a brand new platform.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  21. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Basefuck users won't click a ''history'' button. They'll think it's about nights in amour and romance unmpires and the pogrom farters and all that shit.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  22. This is stupid^H^H^H^H^H^Hgreat! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah

  23. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Or just lock it once anyone replies, forwards, refucks it or whatever.

    If you make a typhoo odds are you'll spot it within 30 seconds.

    Oh, bugger!

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  24. And email too! by millette · · Score: 1

    When is gmail going to get an edit function? Maybe twitter actually needs draft tweets? Seems better than allowing to change the history of a conversation, no?

    Seriously, if there's no edit but people are still clamouring for it, maybe a bit of education could go a long way helping them understand the difference between a blog and twitter. Oh, and reviewing up to 140 chars doesn't take that much effort.

    1. Re:And email too! by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      Twitter users probably don't have much in the way of "education", besides the ones that got sucked into the everyone-must-go-to-college thing and ended up with the empty diploma. I doubt they do much "reviewing" either - the site's purpose is to let you blast trivial, sub-140 char soundbites to as many people as possible in the hopes that someone, somewhere, might care. A platform for the vapid famous, and the wannabe famous. Speaking of which, we're about to get the first Twitter president. Somewhere in the whole ordeal there's probably a good movie plot - like Idiocracy, but actually funny - but we'll be too busy hiding in fallout shelters or working 60-hour weeks to pay for health insurance to produce it.

  25. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by Tukz · · Score: 1

    So just like Facebook does it?

    --
    - Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
  26. Don't allow likes, etc during edit window by perpenso · · Score: 1

    There needs to be a time limit for editing tweets. Five minutes is good. This keeps someone from going back and changing what they said long after they said it. There also needs to be a flag that tells people that the tweet was edited. This prevents modifying a tweet after people have already agreed with it, etc.

    Don't allow likes, replies, forwarding, etc during the edit window.

    Or cancel/delete any likes, replies, forwarding, etc when an edit occurs, basically deter editing. If the original content changes the feedback should be removed. Yes, this can be abused but it seems less troublesome than letting feedback persist after an edit. Maybe notify the replier and if they care they could check the edited original and restore their feedback if they still care too. This would let them call out someone who completely changed what they originally said.

  27. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There needs to be a time limit for editing tweets. Five minutes is good. This keeps someone from going back and changing what they said long after they said it.

    Or not. It is Twitter - who gives a shit?

    I suppose your concern is that some important announcement or conversation will be distorted in some crucial way? LOL.

  28. This kills the Twitter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From a programming and server-side, this would destroy Twitter if around 20% of its users edited regularly.
    They have shitty servers as it is, changing databases with that number of retards would hammer their poor little servers.

    Can't wait. Do it.

  29. No edit by Smidge204 · · Score: 1

    If anything, most or all social media platforms should prevent editing. People need to learn that there are consequences to saying things in public.

    Maybe if people had to live with the embarrassment of saying stupid things, they'd say fewer stupid things.
    =Smidge=

  30. Gab has an edit button by MikeRT · · Score: 1

    They also have a "mute" feature where someone can try to harass the crap out of you all day by tagging you in posts and it never shows up in your notifications. Just sayin....

    1. Re:Gab has an edit button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They also have a "mute" feature where someone can try to harass the crap out of you all day by tagging you in posts and it never shows up in your notifications. Just sayin....

      Yeah, but let's face it, Gab may as well have named itself "Mute".

  31. Re: There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are confusing Twitter with REDDIT OR 4chan. Both have edit functions. However both sites attract mob mentalities that will organize a cyber bullying campaign against users on serious social media sites (Twitter,Tumblr,Facebook) where one misguided post causes a shitstorm.

  32. Completely unrealistic by Drunkulus · · Score: 1

    Obviously a share price pump 'n dump play. After the latest layoffs, Twitter only has about 1,000 engineers, hardly enough to tackle a new feature.

  33. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by lgw · · Score: 1

    Romance umpires? You're both making less sense than usual and far more entertainer than usual, so ... carry on, I guess.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  34. What Twitter needs by argStyopa · · Score: 2

    ...is simply to be disconnected.
    That way, all the people tweeting stupid shit can pretend the rest of the universe cared about their idiotic crap, but then we don't actually have to read it, and they are in fact safe from the logical consequences of their inane comments.

    Everybody wins.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:What Twitter needs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you go out of your way to read something you disagree with and then complain? The problem isn't the crap on twatter, it's clearly you with nothing better to do. Here's a tip: stop visiting the site and don't subscribe or follow feeds. Wow, that was hard!

    2. Re:What Twitter needs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha yeah right on I hate new things!! :-)

  35. Twitter doesn't need an edit button! by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 1

    It already has delete... unlike Slashdot!

  36. It's a trick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An edit feature will just make it easier for governments to censor without asking Twitter to investigate or suspend profiles for the content people post. If they do have an edit feature, they need to make sure the edited tweet appears at the very top afterwards.

  37. Unpresidented... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Truly an unpresidented decision by Dorsey that would be.

    Consider the implications for presidential typos!

  38. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by ayesnymous · · Score: 1

    Use the StackExchange edit history mechanism.

  39. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should allow editing, but charge $500 for it.

  40. an edit function by fche · · Score: 1

    What Twitter needs most is an edit function applied to its top management.

  41. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Acts of stupidity should be part of the permanent record.

  42. Memory Hole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here it is, kids.

    It's bad enough that you can remove tweets. I think if you have the stones to publish something stupid, you should have to suffer the consequences of the world reading it. No quitsies, no take backs.

    Plus it's an engineering nightmare given the model for how tweets actually work. What happens to re-tweets? What if I "re-tweet" something you never said... you'll never be able to prove you DIDNT say it. You'll also never be able to prove that smith did say something at a particular time. "I warned you of this before it happened!" "No, you didn't... you just edited an old tweet."

    What a mess.

    CAPTCHA: trusty

  43. Re:There needs to be a time limit, and "Edited" fl by allo · · Score: 1

    who cares about them?