Hopes of an edit button flying onto Twitter anytime soon are fading after a senior executive indicated that it is not a primary concern for the social network.
One of the main reasons users have called for an edit feature is to correct mistakes — at the moment, errors in tweets either have to be left on the site, or the entire post has to be deleted and then posted again.
An edit feature has been long requested by users looking for an easier way to amend errors in their tweets, but Twitter’s Kayvon Beykpour has suggested that the wait could be a while.
“Honestly, it’s a feature that I think we should build at some point, but it’s not anywhere near the top of our priorities,” the product lead and co-founder of its Periscope live-streaming technology said at a press event in San Francisco, according to TechCrunch. “That’s the honest answer.”
The social network’s boss, Jack Dorsey, has previously explained that one of the concerns with an edit button was how it could be used to distort the original tweet’s meaning, especially tricky when factoring in retweets.
“If I tweet something that you agree with and then you retweet that, and then I edit my tweet to something that you disagree with, you’ve now retweeted something that you disagree with, and that’s what we need to prevent,” he said in November.
The event also shed some light on a new Twitter test, in which users will be able to follow interests and topics, instead of people, on the platform.
