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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: the 140-Character Limit 'Is Staying' 67

An anonymous reader writes: The rumor that Twitter will scrap its 140-character limit for tweets just won't die. In an interview with NBC this morning, CEO Jack Dorsey has gone on record to say that the limit is staying.
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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: the 140-Character Limit 'Is Staying'

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    He said that they had no intention of messing with the chronological timeline, and here we are.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Sorry, I'm not going to use Flash just so I can see some interview. I know how to read, post a transcript of the interview.

  • Traditionally writers put a space before an opening bracket (like this), but I'm seeing a lot of Slashdot contributors scrunch up the bracket against the last word(like this). Also there are people who don't write the spaces in "a lot" or "at least", and other similar phrases. I wonder if this War on White Space is partly down to Twitter and its character limit.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      YesabsolutelyrightIthinkEnglishisgoingtolookalooklikegermaninthenodistantfuture.

      • YesabsolutelyrightIthinkEnglishisgoingtolookalooklikegermaninthenodistantfuture.

        That's how Thai, Laos and Myanmar script is actually written (zero spaces).

        And by using diacritical marks to indicate vowels, those languages are extremely economical. (Twitter-friendly).

    • Also there are people who don't write the spaces in "a lot" or "at least"

      That would be what we call misspelled.

      Way back when, a college friend got a paper back from a professor with the following written across the first page in big, red marker:

      "a lot" is two words, remember this or I will kill you

      He never misspelled it again.

    • These days we say this (is, a, message, )

  • i can do it in 6: for now.
  • People that can't put two complete thoughts toge

  • by Anonymous Coward

    >>Twitter founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey insists his social media platform does not censor user content, despite suspicion suggesting otherwise.

    >>"Absolutely not," he told TODAY's Matt Lauer

    Bullshit. #FreeStacy

  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday March 18, 2016 @09:55PM (#51729103)
    Because they have to make the tough executive decisions, like how long a tweet should be.
  • by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@gmail.cBALDWINom minus author> on Friday March 18, 2016 @10:07PM (#51729139) Homepage

    This is right after he said Twitter wasn't censoring anyone. When there's ample evidence of people being told to delete factual tweets, because it hurts someones feels.

    You're doing a bang up job there Jack. You opened at nearly $17.20 and closed at just above $16.50 in after hours trading.

  • by honestmonkey ( 819408 ) on Friday March 18, 2016 @11:01PM (#51729309) Journal
    I wish they would increase it just a bit, say to 144, because sometimes I have things to say and they just don't seem to fit into 140 charac
  • Whew! (Score:5, Funny)

    by slowdeath ( 2836529 ) on Friday March 18, 2016 @11:08PM (#51729327)

    I don't think I could take more that 140 characters of Donald Trump at one time!

    Donald Trump. Just say no.

  • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday March 18, 2016 @11:33PM (#51729413)
    "Twitter users can relax, we remain absolutely committed to prohibit any text that may provoke any important thoughts or opinions."
  • by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) on Saturday March 19, 2016 @02:38AM (#51729893) Journal

    I've mixed feelings over social media in general, but Twitter in the specific makes my blood boil.

    It's a medium that seems designed to kill off nuance, civility and sophistication of thought. By forcing people into 140 characters and providing social incentives for them to use those 140 characters to say something that will be shared as widely as possible, it encourages them to make the crassest, most polarizing statements possible. I'd put Twitter as the number one reason that so many online debates these days devolve into bitter mud-slinging between the loudest fringes of two opposing echo-chambers.

    The rapid-response culture of twitter just makes things worse. Combined with the anonymity of online interactions, it compels people to speak before they've had a chance to do a sense-check and think through the consequences. There's no shortage of examples of responsible individuals in major corporations who have thrown away careers because they got sucked into the vortex that Twitter creates. One example, former Microsoft director Adam Orth and the "deal with it" furore over the planned always-online functionality for the Xbox One [eurogamer.net]. Now, you could argue that in this case, Twitter did us a service by providing him with a platform to air his (or the company's) "true feeling". I'm not necessarily sure that's the right response, though. I strongly suspect pretty much everybody has "true feelings" which are pretty appalling at times (I know I do) and a huge part of social interaction is toning those things down before they can fly from your mouth (or indeed, stopping them altogether). Twitter, by design, takes the brakes off.

    Some people can be incredibly witty and lucid within a single sentence. You see those in the occasional +5 Funny or +5 Insightful post on slashdot. Those people are a minority (and most of them struggle to manage it consistently). Most one-line posts are badly written crap (and usually from ACs). Twitter just institutionalizes that, except with less anonymity.

  • 140 characters should be enough for anyone.

  • The 140 might be staying, but the customers are going.
  • That Jack said 140 characters is staying, I'm wondering might be one of those Steve Jobsian deft maneuvers where you say what people are listening for, but aren't actually saying what you're planning (and thus don't actually ANSWER the question).

    I'd not mind Twitter to stick to 140 characters for tweets as they appear in the Feed. In fact, I tweeted Jack my suggestion:
    - 140 characters Tweets would stay. You could continue to tweet 140 characters at a time, OR the 140 character tweet could also be a Summary

  • Stupid platform used by stupid people.

There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares"

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