Jack Dorsey continues to string people along by teasing ‘edit tweet’ feature

Besides asking for permanent bans of the most vile Twitter users, the single most requested thing every user wants is the ability to edit tweets.

I want it. You probably want it, especially if you have ever sent a tweet with an embarrassing typo (remember covfefe?) only to have to leave it as is or delete it. And Kim Kardashian really freaking wants to be able to edit tweets.

Yet, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey continues to string us all along with the idea that such a feature may someday appear without giving any valid reasons for why it hasn’t happened already.

It’s one thing if Dorsey was seriously considering adding the ability to edit tweets, but he’s only been thinking about it for at least at least two years. Two years is a long freaking time to sit around and ponder a feature that so clearly would receive thunderous applause from all sides.

We’re now into the second month of 2019, and it’s clear Dorsey’s back on the “let’s screw with Twitter users” train.

Dorsey has us all on the edge of our seats once again after he sat down with podcaster Joe Rogan and entertained the idea of being able to edit tweets this weekend. 

“You could build it as such so maybe we introduce a 5-second to 30-second delay in the sending,” Dorsey told Rogan. “And within that window, you can edit. The issue with going longer than that is it takes that real-time nature of the conversational flow out of it.”

Sounds wonderful! We’ll take it! Five seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds — who cares! Just make it happen, Jack!

But no…Dorsey had to let his rational, pensive brain takeover and ruin everything. His reasoning, which I’ll admit is somewhat fair, is that it takes the spontaneity out of tweeting. You lose the authenticity of farting out a tweet, if you will.

“If you’re in the context of an NBA game, you want to be fast and you just want to be in the moment. You want to be raw,” Dorsey said. “But if you’re in the context of considering what the president just did, or making a particular statement, then you probably need some more time, and we can be dynamic there.”

I’m no engineer, so I can’t speak to the technical challenges of overhauling a platform with some 326 million monthly active users, but if Facebook can figure a way to let users edit a status update and Instagram can let everyone edit a caption (a feature that wasn’t added until 2014, four years after Instagram launched), I’m sure the many brilliant minds at Twitter can too.

Plus, Twitter’s had at least two years to work on an edit tweet feature. On Dec. 29, 2016, Dorsey asked: “What’s the most important thing you want to see Twitter improve or create in 2017?”

As Recode pointed out at the time, the top three requests seemed to be “an edit button for tweets, a bookmark button, and better safety and reporting options for bullies.”

Twitter rolled out a bookmarks feature (so we no longer need to DM ourselves tweets) in 2018 and has continued to provide better tools to fight online bullying and block and ban users who violate the platform’s terms and services.

But where the hell is tweet editing? 

Dorsey response to users asking for the feature from his 2016 open call included musings like: “Is it more important to edit for spelling/corrections? 5 minute window to edit mistakes or do you need to be able to edit anytime?” and hedges like “edit mistakes quickly or edit anytime? Big dif in implementation. Latter requires change log as we’re oft the public record.”

My question to Dorsey is: Have you had enough time to think about editing tweets? Surely, it must keep him up at night, right? Because it keeps me up. In fact, it’s become something of a running joke to reply to everyone one of Dorsey’s tweets with a message like “but can we have tweet editing yet?”

Even I’ve done it. Here’s me asking Dorsey for the feature after he tweeted how he had a good night’s sleep:

That tweet received quite a healthy amount of likes (for my Twitter account) with nearly 320 people sharing the same view.

And here’s another that I recently tweeted:

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen tech reviewer MKBHD tweet the same sentiment. It’s a lot of times. 

So I ask, for the entire internet, Jack, please, please for the love of all 280 characters that have yet to be tweeted: make this shit happen. 

You’ve got another 11 months left until the end of the year. Get crackin’ because at some point, it’s not even funny anymore that you’re still “thinking” about it. 

Get your sleep and get your daily walk into work to clear your mind. But eye on the prize: Make. Tweets. Editable. In. 2019.