Twitter is still trying to figure out how to let users edit their posts.
During an interview with Joe Rogan last week, CEO Jack Dorsey opened up about the firm’s progress in developing the long-requested feature.
Dorsey has been teasing the idea since 2016, and said on Friday that Twitter is investigating the possibility of establishing a 5- to 30-second sending delay that would give users time to go back and make changes before the tweet publishes.
There’s currently no way to edit tweets; if you make a mistake, your only options are to delete the whole post, or stick with the error.
While users have given feedback requesting an edit feature, many have also pointed out that it could be used maliciously.
A person, for example, could go back and change an entire post after it’s been retweeted thousands of times.
In the segment on the Joe Rogan Experience, the host commented that it would be ideal if the feature came with the ‘ability for people to see the original.’
And, Dorsey said Twitter is ‘looking at exactly that.’
‘The reason we don’t have that in the first place is, we were born on SMS – we were born on text messaging,’ the Twitter CEO explained.
‘When you send a text, you can’t take it back, so when you send a tweet, it goes to the world instantaneously, you can’t take it back.’
‘You could build it such that, maybe we introduce a 5-second to 30-second delay in the sending, and within that window, you can edit,’ Dorsey continued.
‘The issue of going longer than that is it takes the real-time nature and conversational flow out of it.’
Twitter has spent the last few years embroiled in controversy as it struggles to get a grip on rampant hate speech across the site.
Users have upped the pressure on Dorsey as a result, demanding the CEO crack down on Neo Nazis on the site.
Dorsey skirted the issue once again in a wide-ranging interview with the Rolling Stone last month, but admitted it’s been used ‘for stuff I’m not proud of.’
‘I feel the weight of how our tool is used in society and how it’s been used for good and how it’s used for stuff I’m not proud of,’ Dorsey told Rolling Stone.
‘Like creating bubbles and echo chambers. I’m not proud of that. Like, we definitely help divide people.
‘We definitely create isolation. We definitely make it easy for people to confirm their own bias.
‘We’ve only given them one tool, which is follow an account that will 90 percent confirm whatever bias you have.
‘And it doesn’t allow them to seek other perspectives. It contributes to tribalism. It contributes to nationalism,’ he added.
