Twitter's edit button may not truly edit your tweets

Twitter has already confirmed that it’s — lastly! — engaged on editable tweets. However a brand new report by one researcher means that the tweets will not truly be editable and that Twitter will simply create a brand new one as an alternative.

Whereas folks have been asking Twitter to allow them to repair their typos for years, that may probably not be what the recently-announced edit button will do. In line with researcher Jane Manchun Wong, it seems that Twitter plans to create a brand new tweet, with a brand new ID, each time somebody tries to edit an present one. That outdated tweet will then be linked to through the brand new one, making a thread of types.

Appears to be like like Twitter’s method to Edit Tweet is immutable, as in, as an alternative of mutating the Tweet textual content throughout the identical Tweet (identical ID), it re-creates a brand new Tweet with the amended content material, together with the checklist of the outdated Tweets prior of that edit

This could, in idea, imply that publishers who embed tweets — just like the one above — into their content material will not want to fret about them being edited later. The tweet would stay as-is, with a subsequent edit being posted as an all-new tweet, full with an authentic ID.

If this sounds acquainted, it is as a result of it already occurred to some extent. Third-party builders have beforehand supplied an edit button of types — a button that copied the content material of an incorrect tweet and created a brand new one with it, able to be edited. As soon as printed, the unique tweet could be deleted. The distinction with Twitter’s method is that the unique would not appear to be deleted however fairly saved for posterity.

If that’s certainly true, it will not truly be what folks have been asking for. Tweets with typos will nonetheless be round, haunting them without end.

In fact, it is vital to do not forget that Twitter itself hasn’t confirmed this and it is possible that it might transfer away from this implementation earlier than rolling editable tweets out. As ever, solely time will inform.

For now, Twitterrific is likely one of the finest iPhone apps for utilizing Twitter and it already has its personal edit button. Get it within the App Retailer now.