Why you might soon be able to edit your tweets, thanks to Kim Kardashian

By David Nield Published July 25, 2015

Twitter may eliminate its 140-character limit on direct messages — Image used with permission by copyright holder

First it was Taylor Swift calling out Apple for its policy over artist royalties; now it looks like Kim Kardashian could persuade Twitter to introduce a feature users have been wanting for a long, long time — if it wasn’t for these high-profile celebrities, it doesn’t seem like we’d get anything done.

I just emailed Twitter to see if they can add an edit feature so that when u misspell something u don’t have to delete & repost Let’s see…

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) July 25, 2015

Kim’s not happy that you still can’t edit existing tweets. Right now, if you make a typo or want to rephrase what you’ve said, you have to delete the original tweet and start again from scratch, which isn’t ideal. The interesting part of the story is Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey replied to Mrs. Kardashian West saying it was a “great idea.”

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Don’t get too excited yet though: BuzzFeed asked Dorsey if an editing feature really was on the way, and he replied saying: “I want us to question everything to make it better.” So in other words it’s a feature that’s definitely maybe coming to your timeline soon — but don’t forget to thank Kim Kardashian if it happens.

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It’s a wonder that Dorsey has any time to reply to tweets at all. He’s currently serving as Twitter’s interim CEO (a job he has held in the past) while the company looks for a new boss. He’s also busy running Square, the mobile payments service, and there are rumors the firm is about to follow Twitter and become a publicly listed company.

The first order of business for the next Twitter CEO will be to attract a new swathe of users who are more familiar with Facebook and Instagram without alienating the 302 million tweeters who already send out 500 million posts per day. We’re also hoping an edit function is on his or her agenda too.

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Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…

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