You know what no one feels like we need in a time when Twitter helped deposit an ignorant maniac in the White House and is also a breeding ground for hate groups? More Twitter. So, in typical Twitter fashion, that’s exactly what we got with the social media platform’s small test run of 280-character tweets—double the usual limit.
The responses have generally ranged from complaints that the 140-character limit was good for creativity, snark about how much value there really is in such a change, and genuine criticism that the platform’s function as a haven for abuse and harassment is the problem the company should be looking to solve. While they have improved their tools to combat those issues, users are still running into difficulty when reporting obvious threats and abuse inexplicably ends with Twitter’s team deciding not to punish the offender. (It’s far from the only social platform with this problem.)
It’s hard to imagine the character limit change, which has only rolled out to select users so far, took much in the way of development resources, but with the platform’s monthly user count stagnating and even dropping in recent months, it feels like the company is trying to combat that by just throwing together generally meaningless features rather than addressing its actual problems. Twitter’s own co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey, acknowledged the response to the change, but he unsurprisingly focused more on the “snark” and less on complaints about the company’s response to the toxic elements the platform has enabled.
Meanwhile, this user edited down his original, Long Tweet about the change to fit the 140-character limit:
— Brian Barone (@brianrbarone) September 26, 2017
Some mocked how, despite complaints, users have already been circumventing the character limit:
The 280-character limit is a terrible idea. The whole beauty of Twitter is that it forces you to express your ideas concisely (1/47)
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) September 26, 2017
And some just mocked:
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer’s head. There’s also Rick’s nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven int
— property of alucard (@trevorbelmxnt) September 26, 2017
(That one was predictably, hilariously misconstrued to be serious by way too many people.)
EVERY MORNING I WAKE UP AND OPEN PALM SLAM A VHS INTO THE SLOT. IT’S CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK AND RIGHT THEN AND THERE I START DOING THE MOVES ALONGSIDE WITH THE MAIN CHARACTER, RIDDICK. I DO EVERY MOVE AND I DO EVERY MOVE HARD. MAKIN WHOOSHING SOUNDS WHEN I SLAM DOWN SOME NECRO BA
— Alex Geoffroy (@EsPyramid) September 27, 2017
ah cool 140 new characters I love Suikoden
— lena raine (@kuraine) September 26, 2017
omg the good place is about twitter pic.twitter.com/yqABYiUUWY
— E. Alex Jung (@e_alexjung) September 26, 2017
Thanks Jack, I’ve been calling for this feature for years pic.twitter.com/JAWim1GyVO
— Pixelated Boat (@pixelatedboat) September 26, 2017
Hey wow @jack @Twitter @TweetDeck the new character limit is so great and usable and really adds to my experience wow great pic.twitter.com/v1i9mzCuzY
— Max Eddy, Max Sweaty (@wmaxeddy) September 27, 2017
And then, of course, there are those of us who would like to see the service prioritize saving us all from death-by-manbaby-tweet before their own benefit and relevance, but their own explanation as to why makes it clear we’re wasting our breath—or, at least, our characters. But now we have twice as many to waste!
Yeah let’s definitely give this deluded assmunch 140 more characters https://t.co/oV91J2fMAh
— Andi Zeisler (@andizeisler) September 27, 2017
(image: Twitter, Universal Pictures)
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