Twitter Dropping Handles and Media Attachments From 140-Character Limit Starting September 19

Twitter's planned update that will make additional characters available for tweets is coming on September 19, reports The Verge. As was announced in May, Twitter will stop counting Twitter handles, photos, GIFs, polls, and other media content within the 140-character limit allowed for each tweet, leaving more room for text.

All @names, such as @MacRumors, will no longer count towards the 140-character count, nor will media attachments, retweets, or quoted tweets, but links will still eat up 23 characters.

Twitter declined to comment publicly on The Verge's leaked release date, nor is a source for the launch date given, but the change has been in the works for months. Twitter announced the news early to give its developer partners time to make any needed updates to products using the Twitter API.

Twitter has used a 140-character restriction for each tweet since it launched in 2006. Reports earlier this year suggested the microblogging site was considering eliminating the 140-character limit altogether, but Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey later said the limit will remain in place. Still, Twitter has been exploring ways to allow people to better express themselves and has said it has additional plans to make existing uses easier and enable new ones.

Tag: Twitter

Top Rated Comments

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cocky jeremy

32 months ago

Drop the character limit.

No way. The character limit is what prevents massive spam posts no one wants to see.

Rating: 11 Votes

dannyyankou

32 months ago

Now before someone posts the inevitable "now let us edit tweets" post...

Think about it. Someone tweets something, you retweet it, then that person edits it without you're knowledge. It can create a bunch of problems.

Rating: 5 Votes

Mildredop

32 months ago

Any other non-existent posts in this thread you'd like to comment on?

Rating: 4 Votes

xTIMMYxCOREx

32 months ago

Honestly if it were not for Donald Trump I don't think I would even remember Twitter still exists. it's so 2 years ago.

Rating: 4 Votes

C DM

32 months ago

@i [USER=70736]@hope[/USER] @no [USER=76922]@one[/USER] @abuses @this [USER=512910]@new[/USER] [USER=26900]@feature[/USER].

That kind of stuff doesn't happen on the Internet.

Rating: 3 Votes

zorinlynx

32 months ago

Spam-mentions of hundreds of users per tweet starts effective September, 19.

One would hope there is a limit to how many users can be @mentioned in one tweet. Otherwise this will destroy the platform.

Note this post. I will not edit it. I will refer back to it a year from now when Twitter is a smoldering ruin, if they don't implement a limit. Mark my words.

Rating: 3 Votes

Dagless

32 months ago

It's a nice step forward. Following on from the "quality content" option I'm starting to use Twitter more. I think they could get away with a weekly 10k tweet, working the same way that images do with a "click to expand" button. You could use it like a weekly zine or rant about how annoying groups like GG are.
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it took them this long to make this change? #moveslow

It does. I still like them and use it frequently. But I also like that it hasn't changed *too* much. Sometimes I get lost in Facebook as they make big changes.

Rating: 2 Votes

uajafd

32 months ago

Spam-mentions of hundreds of users per tweet starts effective September, 19.

Rating: 2 Votes

EgbertAttrick

32 months ago

@i [USER=70736]@hope[/USER] @no [USER=76922]@one[/USER] @abuses @this [USER=512910]@new[/USER] [USER=26900]@feature[/USER].

Rating: 1 Votes

Naaaaak

32 months ago

They should drop the extreme censorship and stop erasing every trending hashtag that goes against their political candidate of choice.

Twitter is anti-free speech, so Twitter can die in a fire.

Rating: 1 Votes

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