We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, 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).
In what many are calling an move to satisfy Twitter’s most divisive small handed user Donald J Drumpf, they have today decided to roll out (to a select small group of users) the ability to create tweets up to 280 characters long, doubling it’s former limit.
The justification comes in the form of most western, latin based, languages using more characters instead of eastern symbolism to explain the same message. English users, the focus of their announcement, hit the limit with 9% of all tweets.
The announcement was backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in his extended 280 character tweet today.
This is a small change, but a big move for us. 140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence! https://t.co/TuHj51MsTu
— jack (@jack) September 26, 2017
Responses and user outrage can be plainly seen in responses to both his and the official Twitter account, many responses focusing on Trump and the controversy around whether his account should be banned for threatening statements.
https://twitter.com/mattmabus/status/912805741743955973
Close your eyes.
Imagine Trump using Twitter.
Now imagine Trump using Twitter with 280 characters.
Now close Twitter.
— M.G. Siegler (@mgsiegler) September 26, 2017
thanks @jack, now we'll really get to see how many typos POTUS can make in 1 tweet
— Jay Le (@fumey) September 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/AlexSmith1964/status/912810319147421696