‘This Will be Abused in Ways We Can’t Even Imagine Yet’: Users React After Twitter Announces Edit Button

On Monday, it was disclosed that Elon Musk used some of his billions to become Twitter’s largest shareholder last month. By Tuesday, an edit button was in the mix.

Musk was appointed to Twitter’s board of directors Tuesday after he shelled out $2.9 billion for 73.5 million shares.

After spending a fortune to own 9.2% of the company, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO polled his followers about an edit button.

Do you want an edit button?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022

A day later, Twitter announced one is officially in the works.

👀 pic.twitter.com/I13wE3eLdn

— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) April 5, 2022

A majority of those who voted in Musk’s poll answered that they want an edit button.

Unsurprisingly, the topic polarized Twitter users, who expressed a mixture of apathy, confusion, shock and pre-nostalgia. Blue checks from all sides soon weighed in.

My micro-generation’s moon landing, happening in front of our eyes https://t.co/tx3HuVehoD

— Tom Gara (@tomgara) April 5, 2022

Asking for an edit button has been such a silly performance considering that you can quickly delete and repost a tweet, and that the people who really care about typos are really just the author and a few random nerds who think calling out typos is a personality

— Zito (@_Zeets) April 5, 2022

An “Edit” button is fine, but a tweet’s quote-tweets, retweets, and likes should be reset to zero after each time you use it. https://t.co/im4cfWFz2z

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) April 5, 2022

Were standing by out typos.#RaisingAsOne https://t.co/BYrDOgG1pc

— Phoenix Rising FC (@PHXRisingFC) April 5, 2022

this absolutely MUST include a feature making it clear that the tweet has been edited, and a limit on the number of times it can be edited. https://t.co/KKrOk6ufYv

— OFMD Stan Account (@Jenny_Trout) April 5, 2022

The edit button is coming!! https://t.co/ZzpWtcYhMw

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) April 5, 2022

I was really excited to hear about the new Twitter edit button until I found out it will only work on your own tweets.

— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) April 5, 2022

I think one of the things that makes Twitter such a credible source of information is that there is no edit button that allows a person go and change their words after they have posted it. Words + Time stamp + Author.

I think it should stay!

— Tola (@adetolaov) April 5, 2022

Here’s my argument against an edit button: What if a tweet goes viral, lots of retweets & millions of impressions, & then the author completely changes the meaning? Not just a grammatical fix, but a TOTAL ideological change? Or shameless self-promote?

— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) April 5, 2022

an edit button would cause mayhem on this site imagine retweeting something and the OP changes it to mean something totally different

— Jordan Chamberlain (@jordylancaster) April 5, 2022

Twitter says they’re working on an edit button.

They should work on stopping their censorship of conservatives.

— Rep. Darrell Issa (@repdarrellissa) April 2, 2022

The reality is that an edit button is particularly bad because the highest-performing posts on this whole platform are of the “Georg Maier says the Nazis are good, actually. RETWEET IF YOU DISAGREE!” type and simply editbuttoning the three letters DIS would illustrate the point https://t.co/sXap97GXOf

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) April 5, 2022

If Twitter adds an edit button it will doom their platform. Only tweets with typos in them blow up everyone knows this.

— Lyle Rath (@LyleRath) April 5, 2022

not sure how to feel about this but one thing I know *for sure* is that this will be abused in ways we can’t even imagine yet https://t.co/0RUurnXlxA

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) April 5, 2022