Twitter rumored to change 140-character limit

New speculation of the character limit being changed on Twitter has caused a buzz over the last few weeks.

According to the article “Twitter Plans to Go Beyond Its 140-Character Limit” released on Re/code, an influencers-only blog, Twitter has released information saying that they are working on building a product that will allow users to produce content exceeding 140 characters.

Twitter users can already tweet out longer blocks of text using other apps, but doing this doesn’t actually publish the text to Twitter.

Jack Dorsey was announced as Twitter’s CEO in early October and according to Re/code, he is supportive of potential change. 

Twitter has always been very sensitive to change in fear that it would go against the principles it was created on, according to the article.

The 140-character limit has been a staple of Twitter since its creation in 2006.

Kelsey Kern, a senior public health major, stands for the 140-character limit. 

“I think that if Twitter changes their character limit it will basically turn into Facebook,” Kern said. “The reason I use Twitter is because it is short, sweet, and to the point.”

However, some students, including junior public relations major Zabrina Hvostal, are excited about the change.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with Twitter taking off the limit. I get so frustrated when I want to tweet something that doesn’t fit that I just don’t tweet about it at all,” Hvostal said. “Even if they don’t lift the limit totally, they should double it.”

Twitter has yet to confirm whether or not they are planning to completely eliminate the character limit or just raise the limit.

Along with considering the tweaking of the character limit, Twitter is also reconsidering how to measure a “character.” Currently, placing links and photos into a tweet takes a large amount of the 140-character limit, according to Re/code.

Changing what counts as a “character” would leave users more room to add their own words to a tweet.

Twitter added a “retweet with comment” option in April, giving users the opportunity to interact more directly and with more space to do so.

The company also recently decided to lift the character count on direct messages, following the style of Facebook.

Tweaking the character limit may never reach consumers, but according to Re/code, Twitter is desperate to attract users and Dorsey wants to reach a more mainstream audience. 

Weslee Clyde is the student life reporter for The Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].