Musk confirms Twitter can soon expand or kill 280-character limit

Responding to a user who asked if we can get rid of character limits, or at least greatly expand it, Musk said: "Absolutely". Musk, who has acquired Twitter for $44 billion after a bitter battle, said in April this year that the micro-blogging platform needs long-form tweets which is "way overdue". Twitter currently allows people to post in 280 characters. Reacting to a follower's tweet thread, Musk said: "My most immediate takeaway from this novella of a thread is that Twitter is way overdue for long form tweets!"

Elon Musk on Sunday confirmed that Twitter can soon expand or even get rid of the 280-character limit on the platform.

Responding to a user who asked if we can get rid of character limits, or at least greatly expand it, Musk said: "Absolutely".

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Musk, who has acquired Twitter for $44 billion after a bitter battle, said in April this year that the micro-blogging platform needs long-form tweets which is "way overdue".

Twitter currently allows people to post in 280 characters.

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Reacting to a follower's tweet thread, Musk said: "My most immediate takeaway from this novella of a thread is that Twitter is way overdue for long form tweets!"

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Earlier, Musk demanded an Edit button, and the micro-blogging platform announced that it is working on such a feature that will allow users to correct errors in their tweets, albeit with some rules.

Twitter launched 280 characters in November 2017 to all users in supported languages, including English.

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The company first announced the controversial plan to move beyond its traditional 140 characters in September 2017 with a small group of users.

Several Twitter users had argued that 280 characters would make Twitter less readable as the platform's defining characteristic is the brevity of posts.

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However, Twitter's decision to double its character count from 140 to 280 characters did not dramatically change the length of Twitter posts.

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According to the company, Twitter is still a place for briefer thoughts.

Only 1 per cent of tweets hit the 280-character limit, and only 12 per cent of tweets were longer than 140 characters, according to the data provided by the company a couple of years back. Only 5 per cent of tweets were longer than 190 characters.

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