Twitter Is Testing A 280-Character Limit For Tweets

If you are an avid twitterati and the 140-character has always annoyed you, then you’re in luck. Twitter has announced that it will be testing a 280-character limit for tweets for some people. These people will be randomly chosen and the duration of the testing phase has not been announced yet.

Back in 2016, Twitter chief Jack Dorsey was asked about the 140-character limit and its future, and he replied with a firm “It’s staying.” All this seems to have changed within a year as the 280-character limit testing phase picks up pace. The company has said that only a “single-digit” percentage of its users will get the opportunity to double their tweet’s character. Twitter has over 328 million users, so, basically millions will get that opportunity.

There is no direct cause for action here, according to Twitter. But, in a recent blog post Aliza Rosen, Product Manager at Twitter pointed out something. She said that in languages like Chinese, Korean, Japanese you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages, like English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.

We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, so we’re doing something new: we’re going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean).

As is evident from the quote, the 280-character limit will roll out in all languages except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. The process of choosing these “small percentage” of people has not been revealed by the company yet.

Rozen continued to state, “Also, in all markets, when people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people Tweeting – which is awesome!” This basically means that Twitter is willing to flex the character limit to reach out to more people. In doing so, it is also willing to give up something that has been quintessential to its growth so far and has been a part of the company’s identity since the very beginning.

The roll-out has happened and if you are one of the millions to be able to tweet in 280 characters, let us know in the comments below!