Twitter tests editing feature: equivalent to new tweets, but will include historical content

Beijing time on April 19 morning news, in the past more than a year, Twitter users have been asking the platform management department to increase the function of editing messages, and only now the company has decided to launch this function. However, Twitter’s message editing function is different from what users think: technically, the function does not edit old tweets, but creates new ones.

Details of the new feature were revealed by Jane Manchun Wong, a Hong Kong-based technology researcher known for uncovering hidden features in popular apps, describing: “The way Twitter edits messages doesn’t seem to change, the platform doesn’t change the same tweet. text in the message (with the same ID), but instead creates a new Twitter message with the changed content, along with a list of previous old messages.”

Other than that, there’s nothing fancy about the operation: users can click the icon with three dots in the upper right corner of the message, which brings up a menu with the option to “Edit Twitter Message”; , the user is taken to the standard interface for sending new tweets – the only difference is that the button below the option says “Update” instead of the traditional “Post Tweet”.

More recently, Elon Musk, the billionaire who owns Tesla and SpaceX, offered to buy Twitter, but the company’s board was unenthusiastic about the offer and took action against a hostile takeover . In response, Musk reportedly decided to enlist the support of other investors.

According to online sources, Musk is discussing the possibility of a joint acquisition of Twitter with potential investors, and the new plan will be officially announced in the next few days.

There are reports that Musk is considering a partnership with investment firm Silver Lake Partners. Silver Lake co-chairman Egon Durban, who sits on Twitter’s board, led Musk’s deal team during the failed 2018 attempt to take Tesla private. An official representative for the investment firm declined to comment for this story.

Musk has previously said that he has a “Plan B” if he can’t buy out the remaining shares of Twitter (he currently holds 9.1% of Twitter shares), but the details have not been disclosed. It now appears that perhaps the billionaire’s backup plan is to attract new investors to the deal.