Twitter's most requested feature, the edit button, is actually real, and is set to arrive as a test feature later this year.
The company announced the news this afternoon amid speculation that new Twitter board member Elon Musk will pressure the social media platform into adding an edit button.
“Now that everyone is asking… yes, we’ve been working on an edit feature since last year! No, we didn’t get the idea from a poll," Twitter tweeted, referencing the poll Musk started on Monday asking if users want an edit button.
The company plans on testing the edit button first among users of Twitter Blue, which costs $2.99 per month. The edit button will be available through the Twitter Blue Labs beta program in the coming months. Twitter also debuted a GIF that shows the edit button will be accessible via the three-dot button on a posted tweet.
“Edit has been the most requested Twitter feature for many years,” said Head of Consumer Product Jay Sullivan. “People want to be able to fix (sometimes embarrassing) mistakes, typos and hot takes in the moment. They currently work around this by deleting and tweeting again.”
In the past, Twitter has balked at adding an edit button over concerns it could be abused. The main worry is that a tweet that’s gone viral could be edited with different information. People who circulated the original tweet would then be rebroadcasting information totally unaware the content was changed.
“Without things like time limits, controls, and transparency about what has been edited, Edit could be misused to alter the record of the public conversation,” Sullivan added. “Protecting the integrity of that public conversation is our top priority when we approach this work.”
As a result, Twitter is being extra careful with how it develops the edit button. “It will take time and we will be actively seeking input and adversarial thinking in advance of launching Edit. We will approach this feature with care and thoughtfulness and we will share updates as we go,” Sullivan added.
It's unclear if the edit button will remain exclusive to Twitter Blue. We reached out to Twitter for comment and will update the story if we hear back. However, the company's blog post on Twitter Blue Labs notes: "These features might eventually become available to the rest of Twitter, graduate to a feature of Twitter Blue, or sunset based on feedback we hear from subscribers."