Twitter’s long awaited ‘longer’ tweets have finally arrived, but the flexible character limit comes with a catch. Twitter is not really increasing the character limit of the tweets, it will continue to be 140 characters, however it is changing the way it counts the 140 characters. In the new format, media attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls will no longer be counted towards the character limit. Other than the media file attachments, Twitter has also made changes to the way tagged usernames are counted towards the 140 character limit. When replying to a Tweet, the usernames (@names) at the beginning of a tweet will no longer be counted. Also, quote tweets will also not be counted in the character limit, unless you include a link to another tweet in your post, that would count as normal. Additionally, new Tweets that begin with a username will no longer have to use the ”.@” convention in order to have those Tweets reach all of their followers.
Say more about what’s happening! Rolling out now: photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and Quote Tweets no longer count toward your 140 characters. pic.twitter.com/I9pUC0NdZC
— Twitter (@twitter) September 19, 2016
Twitter says that the set of changes to tweets have been made so that people can express even more in 140 characters. These changes are aimed to allow for richer public conversations that are easier to follow on Twitter and to ensure that people can attach media to Tweets without sacrificing the characters they have to express themselves.
When Twitter announced all these changes to, CEO Jack Dorsey told The Verge, “This is the most notable change we’ve made in recent times around conversation in particular, and around giving people the full expressiveness of the 140 characters. I’m excited to see even more dialog because of this.” Basically, with these changes Twitter intends to make having conversations on the platform easier and more straightforward, no more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group. While Twitter aims to give its users more power with the new changes made to its Tweets, people on Twitter have had a mixed reaction about this. While some users feel that Twitter is taking the essence of the social media platform away by tweaking the character limit, others are happy that they have more space for their ‘longer thoughts’.
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