You can’t edit old tweets, but you may soon be able to ‘clarify’ them
Feb 15, 2019
In an event for Goldman Sachs on Thursday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that Twitter is “thinking about” creating a feature that would allow users to add clarifications or annotations to old tweets, according to Recode.
Why they are considering it: Twitter’s clarification feature would be in response to what Dorsey referred to as a movement of “canceling” individuals because of things they’ve said in the past on Twitter or other platforms.
- Celebrities, politicians and athletes frequently make the news for old tweets that have been resurfaced online by social media users. Dorsey’s plans for the site appear to be intended to combat that and also limit the spread of misinformation, as the clarification feature would allow news organizations to fix previously reported but inaccurate information and prevent it from spreading.
- “There’s no credible way to kind of go back and clarify or even have a conversation to show the learning and the transition since,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey’s vision for the feature is to allow users to add clarification to a tweet anywhere that tweet appears.
- “You might imagine that the original tweet then would not have the sort of engagement around it,” Dorsey said. “You wouldn’t be able to retweet the original tweet, for instance. You would just show the clarification, you would be able to retweet the clarification, so it always carries around with it that context. That’s one approach.”
Dorsey said that although there is not a clear idea of what the feature will look like, it is being considered by Twitter. Only time will tell if the feature is fully incorporated into the site.
