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Twitter Will 'Probably' Never Offer the Option To Edit Tweets, Says CEO Jack Dorsey (inputmag.com) 74

Posted by msmash from the get-over-it dept.
Since the dawn of Twitter, users have been begging and pleading for a way to edit Tweets. Sadly, despite the entreaties of those upon whose usage the service depends, Twitter head honcho Jack Dorsey says you'll "probably" never be able to edit a tweet. From a report: Dorsey was asked during a video Q&A with Twitter users conducted by Wired whether 2020 would be the year Twitter would introduce an edit function. Dorsey's short answer? "No." "The reason there's no edit button ... is we started as an SMS, text messaging service. So, as you all know, when you send a text message, you can't really take it back," Dorsey says, adding that Twitter wants "to preserve that vibe, that feeling, uh, in the early days."
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Twitter Will 'Probably' Never Offer the Option To Edit Tweets, Says CEO Jack Dorsey More

Twitter Will 'Probably' Never Offer the Option To Edit Tweets, Says CEO Jack Dorsey

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  • they still have an moderator delete system!

  • How to handle Trumpâ(TM)s use...no delete (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ronin Developer ( 67677 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @11:11AM (#59623156)

    Since Twitter is now recognized as official Whitehouse correspondence, the delete option on a tweet needs to be removed as well in order to comply with the law. The President must not be allowed to delete a Tweet once sent.

    So, letâ(TM)s make that happen Twitter, shall we?

    • Re:How to handle Trumpâ(TM)s use...no delete (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @11:27AM (#59623220)

      This ^^^ so very much

      If a President is going to use twitter, then they need to be held to their word

      Tweets must be available for the period of time required by federal documents

      Either that, or remove any politician's twitter account who does not comply

      • If a President is going to use twitter, then they need to be held to their word

        How's Twitter unique? Do we hold politicians to their word during a simple press conference? No.. Why is Twitter different?

        • Re:How to handle Trumpâ(TM)s use...no delete (Score:5, Informative)

          by the_B0fh ( 208483 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @11:41AM (#59623254) Homepage
          "official correspondence", not "press conference".

          Also, "white house/president" and not "politician".

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Records_Act exists.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician_Records_Act is there for you to go add nonsense.

          • Record keeping rules don't really matter here because that's not what I was talking about... I was addressing the "they need to be held to their word" (i.e. to what they tweet).

            We choose to hold politicians to their promises or we don't. I was asking why the original poster chose to hold Tweets by the president at some higher value than a press conference by say a Senator or the Speaker of the House? Both are public records..

            Of course, my sideways swipe at the hypocrisy of the original poster's compla

            • You are conflating two separate issues.

              1) Whether politicians should be held to their words.

              2) Whether a presidential tweet should be permanently recorded.

              With regards to twitter, it's #2 that's being discussed. The president has stated that his tweets are formal whitehouse announcements/policy announcements. If that is the case, it is irrelevant if you believe a politician should be held to their word. This is a formal whitehouse announcement, and therefore it falls under the law called "Presidential

              • He's not conflating shit. Here's the post that started this:

                If a President is going to use twitter, then they need to be held to their word

                Tweets must be available for the period of time required by federal documents

                Either that, or remove any politician's twitter account who does not comply

            • Thank you. Yes. Hold them to their word.

              President Trump has made 15,413 false or misleading claims over 1,055 days
              https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/16/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/ [washingtonpost.com]
        • Depends on the politician and the nature of the statements. If it is for a campaign and the politicians makes promises on what he/she does if elected, legally they cannot be held accountable as promises of the future are not guaranteed. However, if they defame or slander someone during that press conference, yes they can be held accountable. If they lied about something during the press conference, yes they can be held accountable.

          • I can agree with you on this. However, I would add that if a campaign promise is made, then an attempt is not made to make good on it, that accrues to the determent of the person who made the promise. I fully understand that circumstances change, that many promises made cannot possibly be fulfilled by those making them without the cooperation of others in power; that sometimes things change or turn out to be beyond reach.

            Still, I frown on making promises that I'm not able to make good and attempt to not

            • I have a hypothesis about this. (I have a lot of hypotheses.) I see elections (specifically elections in US America) as an evolutionary process. Each election is analogous to a biological generation. In each election, the definition of success is getting elected (or re-elected). That's all.

              This process will select for politicians who are willing to do whatever is necessary to win elections, without restraint. If a candidate lies and still gets elected, then every candidate after that must lie, or they'll b

          • If they lied about something during the press conference, yes they can be held accountable.

            While I agree with much of your philosophy on this....I think I have to disagree with you on this one.

            I don't think there are any laws saying you cannot lie in a press conference, nor anywhere else for the most part if you are not under oath.

            It's not being nice or playing the game fairly, but I don't think there is much legal standing for someone to be held legally accountable for anything they say if they are not

            • Lying about military service [wikipedia.org] is a federal crime. Lying in a company’s financial statements is also a crime. Tangentially part of defamation is that the statements must be false. Lying in a press conference means it is on the public record as opposed to the lie being said in a conversation which is hearsay. So when I mean held accountable it means more it is now more than just hearsay testimony.

              • Reading that link you had about the lying about military servers, in that opening paragraph it says:

                In United States v. Alvarez the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 28, 2012, that the Stolen Valor Act was an unconstitutional abridgment of the freedom of speech under the First Amendment, striking down the law in a 6 to 3 decision.

                So, apparently you can do this now?

                I mean, no one should do it, but apparently that law went too far against freedom of speech.

        • How's Twitter unique? Do we hold politicians to their word during a simple press conference? No..

          Some of us do try, we really do. And wonder why so few do, including the (supposedly) free press. Presumably tribalism is more powerful than truth; and, of course, many people don't want the truth and can't handle the truth. Hearing Daddy and Mommy reassure us that everything is fine, and they'll take care of us, is ever so much more pleasant and a lot easier.

    • That's like saying that because someone can use a knife to murder someone, stores must stop selling knives to felons, or that because football coaches sometimes cheat stores must not sell binoculars to football teams.

      None of it has anything to do with Twitter. Twitter does not become beholden to laws that apply to US government figures. Twitter needs do nothing to comply with the law, it already does. The US President and his staff are the ones who need to comply with the law.

      You are begging the question, i

      • Agreed, laws about records the president's office is supposed to keep aren't Twitter's responsibility.

        *IF* any tweets fall under the Act, it is the responsibility of the White House communications team to make a record of what they post.

        The president tweets personally, without going through his communications team? That may be a problem under the presidential records act, but it's definitely a security problem. Because the president has top secret information, public announcements should be better by both

    • That's not how the government data retention works. They make a copy of everything you send and receive, not just what is left in your inbox.

    • Non sequitur. What is the relationship between something official and permanence?

      The government changes things frequently.
  • it still still seems nigh on impossible to actually use twitter to follow any kind of thread or topic on it. It's difficult to see who is replying to who ? Or is that the poster?

    • Thing is - twitter really isn't supposed to be about listening to individual voices. Rather, it's about listening to and being a part of the mob. It's about groupthink - and it's increasingly curated and guided, as it were, in a way that "encourages" users of the platform to embrace certain worldviews and political stances.

      So, while it is incredibly frustrating to me to try to unroll threads at times to get the full picture of a conversation, I strongly suspect that this is by design.

      • yes. But here is a typical screen shot : https://images.app.goo.gl/4R8puojCtuSzRmWN8 [app.goo.gl] I don't understand this. Who is the OP ? Where is the thread? What do the various indents mean? Is pearl thusi reply above the parent post ? But then further down the same message ? Or is it a nother message looks like it's responding to another poster? And when is the first post made in relation to the below posts ? 5 m and 42 mins ? From when the OP (is it the OP?) or =now() ? It's an absolute pile of bollocks.

    • Your best bet is to stay off twitter. Twitter gave everyone a voice and collectively that voice is cancer.

      • 100%. Twitter is basically a demonstration of the worst of humanity. I hate-read some left wing accounts and I have never seem such unrelenting negativity in my life. It's just a constant stream of complaining. It makes me pine for the fake positivity of Instagram or Facebook.

        I won't say which demographic out of sensitivity (lol) but it's also become rife with a whole lot of mentally ill e-beggers. Please fund this, please fund that, OMG I am in an unsafe environment, please cashapp me! Go read left wing tw

        • I hate-read some right-wing places, though not twitter. I don't think it's just left or right that's at fault: It's just human nature to form a community, then cluster that community together and hate all outsiders.

          • Oh, 100% agreed. I am right wing on some issues like guns, so I read around at e.g. ar15.com, and it's fucking embarrassing. It makes me think that if I am even vaguely on the same page as those absolute tards on any topic I should reassess and go donate all my guns to charity or some shit. Conspiracy theories, "lock her up" nonsense, pizzagate, Q, climate change denial as a religion, people who actually support Trump enthusiastically and celebrate him for the same shit they would (and still do) crucify Oba

        • When are people going to realize that twitter is a mob, not a demographic?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • It'd be nice to be able to delete comments on Slashdot.

      Never!! Archived comments are Slashdot's saving grace. It's bad enough that the staff sometimes deletes "offensive" content.

      Editing is bad also. Just post a correction.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dissy ( 172727 )

      ** The post you are responding to has been edited and deleted **

      OMG you do WHAT to horses privates?! Worse, it's legal where you live? Uh I want to vomit now!

      PS, out of character to expand my point, good luck proving to the court of public opinion you didn't admit to sex with horses and tried to cover it up ;P

      It's only obvious that what I said isn't true due to the fact you can't edit or delete slashdot posts.

  • Be Careful What You Tweet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vandil X ( 636030 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @11:14AM (#59623174)
    Eventually, someone will dumpster dive and find something you posted in the past that is considered offensive (or against the Narrative) in the present and roast you for it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

      That's a favorite of the left. Find something that was said years ago and use it to get someone fired. I don't understand the correlation between the actions of a person and why they need fired as punishment. Can any liberals tell me? Although they got a taste of their own medicine with the firing of James Gunn.

      • So to rephrase your question.

        Here's something that happened once that I claim without evidence is a favourite tactic of a rather large political grouping. Can someone from a different political group tell me why it's a favourite tactic?

        Sorry dude no I can't. But if you ask another question I'll try to answer.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Translation: We built it wrong... (Score:3)

    by forkfail ( 228161 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @11:16AM (#59623184)

    ... but we're ok with that, because we're making a bunch of money, and are increasingly able to influence thought, politics, religion, and behavior.

    So, why in the world should re re-do our entire backend when it's accomplishing exactly what we want it to?

    • Not wrong at all, it strikes a balance between people saying things and having to put a modicum of thought into how they've presented what is being said. A lack of editing means you see slightly more genuine results. And having others notice what you actually think... that scares some people.

    • Or alternatively: We built it right. The haters are wrong.

  • At least Slashdot will be in good company for the forseeable future

  • So it's like Slashdot.

    As a consolation prize it could allow a "correction notice" that is appended to the bottom, and labelled as a correction notice.

    • Nothing stops people from responding with their own corrections now.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        But they can get lost if there are a lot of replies such that people don't see the correction. You can argue "they should" read all first, but should's don't necessarily solve real problems.

        The correction notice perhaps can refer to a longer reply if it doesn't fit in the space allocated. Thus, the correction notice itself doesn't need to be large, perhaps 500 characters max.

  • No you didn't. You may have stated an SMS like service but the character limit is arbitray and lack of edit is a design design not system limitation. I mean, it's good because it encourages you to spell check first so you don't look like a dick but as we've seen from Trumpelthinskin that is not a given and tweets with typos are everywhere. Maybe with an edit people might fix them but who know. /. could do with an edit too for the same reasons except here you can't delete and repost.
  • By using twitter, it hands a de facto monopoly to one company.

  • If user A posts something, then user B comments on it noting a correction, then user A edits the post. Then along comes user C reading the thread and things don't make sense because of the edit.

    Things get worse when a politician makes a comment, then a stream of angry comments follow, and the politician edits the original post to something completely off topic.

    I sometimes see this sort of thing on Amazon when the comments don't match the product because the seller changed the product rather than setting up

    • This was supposedly why Slashdot doesn't allow editing. Apparently there was a troll game of posting stuff that made people rage in response, then you go back and change it to make them look like asses. More than just seeming confusing.

  • Simply have a link with the word EDITED appear on posts that were edited. Click on the link at see the prior version of the post. If the prior version also says EDITED click to go back another revision ...

    Most people will simply use editing to fix speling ... spellling ... spelling and grammar errors that become apparent 2 milliseconds after posting.

  • If only there was a way to see history of edits .. (Score:3)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @12:48PM (#59623440)

    Gee, if only there was a way to see the complete history of an edited comment. /s

    Nah, that will never work. [stackexchange.com]

  • Editing is open to abuse (Score:4, Informative)

    by shortscruffydave ( 638529 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @12:57PM (#59623472)
    I think that an edit option any social media platform where people can interact and show preference for posts is a dangerous thing. For example, you send a tweet saying "I'm totally in favor or world peace", wait for it to get hundreds of likes, and then edit it to say "I think world peace is overrated and anyone who disagrees with me should be killed".. The likes, including the identities of those who liked the post persist against the edited version.

    • Editing is OK when done properly. I routinely edit Slack messages and Facebook posts, usually for clarity and to fix grammar snafus I notice after the fact. In both of these platforms, the full audit trail of the post is maintained so you can tell it was edited, and see all the past versions easily.

      I can't tell you how many times I wished I could update posts on /.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by trawg ( 308495 )

      Simple fix:editing a tweet could zero any likes and undo any retweets? I also think it should be possible to view the diffs of the messages, but appreciate this probably adds a lot more complexity (at least compared to the first).

  • ready the FEMA camps.

  • Stupid (Score:4)

    by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @01:31PM (#59623588)
    "We started off with limitations and now we don't have those limitations but we're still going to emulate those limitations because reasons"

    What a stupid justification. There are valid reasons not to allow editing, this is not one of them.

    As far as valid reasons go, I'd say the biggest reason would be making sure people are accountable for what they actually said instead of what they'd like you to think they said the next day. However, I think that's solvable with a very visible "This post has been edited" notice and a "View edit history" so you can see what the changes actually were. That way, if you just accidentally mangled what you intended to say, you can edit it to clarify, but if you're trying to be sneaky, people can still see that.

    • Valid reason (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cengland0 ( 6241982 )
      I see a valid reason for not allowing editing. You can retweet a post and you can share them. What happens to all those streams that have the original message when it gets edited? I'm pretty sure they don't just duplicate the text when you retweet but put a link to the original as that would save a lot of space. Then once you have a couple hundred thousand shares and retweets, someone changes the original message to something horrible and all those subscribers to the people who retweeted might think the

  • That's Fine With Me. (Score:3)

    by bjwest ( 14070 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @02:14PM (#59623748)

    I view Twitter as a public text site so it's all goog with me.

    Slashdot, on the other hand.... When in hell are you going to fix this thirty year old editor we're stuck with?

  • On other threaded or post/reply platforms, discord, slack, forums, etc.... the ability to edit can be used to totally change the conversation. Which means.... it can be fun! (or cruel, depending).

    Since the feature is often implemented, I always challenge the mods to have a "edit the thread" for a day.... just for fun! You can radically change the conversation. Usually making complete fun of those that replied originally, but are choosing not to keep up with the edits.
  • Like it or not, tweets (and posts on other social media sites) are reasonably persistent. How many people have come to regret posts that they thoughtlessly submitted? Composing a post or comment in a good text editor (with a spell-checker) helps us best communicate our ideas. The final task is to ask ourselves, "Do I really want to send this?"
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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