TWITTER IS SET to officially expand its character limit for all its users.
The expanded 280-character has been in a test phase for certain users only since late September.
Now, the US social media company is set to open up larger tweets to all users of “languages where cramming was an issue”.
The expansion should be live from 9pm this evening. If you can’t see it from then, you’re advised to either update your app, or refresh your desktop browser.
In a blogpost announcing the expansion, the company said that the prior limit had been reached in 9% of tweets, reflecting “the challenge of fitting a thought into a tweet”.
With the new limit this ceases to be a problem:
Since we saw tweets hit the character limit less often, we believe people spent less time editing their tweets in the composer. This shows that more space makes it easier for people to fit thoughts in a tweet, so they could say what they want to say, and send tweets faster than before.
Japanese, Korean, and Chinese users will not be getting the expansion – as the tweet limit is apparently rarely met in those languages.
So, you can expect to be sending 280-character tweets in the coming days. Not that most of us will – only 2% of tweets sent in the beta test were greater than 190 characters in length.
Still, no harm having the option says you. Though hopefully no-one tells Donald Trump.
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