While many users of the platform are thrilled about Twitter increasing characters to 280, some users have taken this information with a reserve.
Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms, as it allows users to express their opinions and make announcements easily. Even tech giants use Twitter to announce news about an upcoming product or update. Users type 140-word posts and share them on Twitter.
However, that was until yesterday, when Twitter announced that it is increasing characters to 280. Basically, it means that Twitter posts are going to contain twice as many characters. Opinions are divided, but here is everything you need to know about Twitter increasing characters to 280.
It is worth mentioning that Twitter has implemented this change only for selected users thus far. That being said, the Japanese, Chinese and Korean languages are not eligible for this innovation yet. Product manager Aliza Rosen published a detailed blog post which reveals info on this change. In fact, she added a compelling graph as well.
“We want every person around the world to express themselves on Twitter easily, so we’re doing something new: we’re going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean).”
The reason behind leaving these languages out is that the English language requires this change, as longer tweets are more common around people who speak English as their native language. Twitter proceeded to add that only 0.4% of Japanese-language tweets reach 140 characters, opposed to the English language, of which 9% of posts reach 140 characters.
“Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people Tweeting in English, but it is not for those Tweeting in Japanese,” she said
On the one hand, this change is good for everyone who wants to extend their word count. Those who didn’t find it fitting to express themselves within 140 characters could actually use twice as more words. Sometimes it is challenging to include all you have to say or announce within 140 characters.
On the other hand, many Twitter users believe that expanding the number of characters to 280 will cause more drama in the shape of bullying posts. Perhaps it would be a better innovation for Twitter to step up its game in filtering disturbing and inappropriate content. Threatening, bullying, posts should be removed. With the extension to 280 characters, there will be posts twice as long encouraging destruction or death.
Twitter didn’t leave a comment regarding bullying and threatening. Still, we can hope that bullies won’t take advantage of Twitter’s plan for increasing characters to 280 and will avoid posting disturbing content.
What do you think about Twitter’s expansion of the character limit? Is Twitter’s decision of increasing characters to 280 going to change anything about posting new tweets? Share your opinion in the comments!
