Twitter´s 140 characters were perhaps synonymous with William Shakespeare´s phrase, "Brevity is the soul of wit." The social media network announced on November 7, 2017, that tweeting was finally made easier as they expanded the number of characters.
Twitter made the announcement via its blog site. It finally made a wish come true for Twitter users. Now, the platform allows you to create 280 characters, so you can include longer tweets.
The company confirmed the increase in the number of characters. Furthermore, this added feature will result in greater engagement with the users on Twitter.
"In addition to more tweeting, people who had more room to Tweet received more engagement (Likes, Retweets, @mentions), got more followers, and spent more time on Twitter."
Various reactions from Twitter Users on the 280 character upgrade
Updates or changes on a social media platform will vary depending on who you ask. The NASA Goddard Twitter account did not hesitate to make the public aware that it favored the new enhancement.
🌟 . * . 🌙
— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) November 8, 2017
*
* . 🛰️ . ✨ *
. *
Thanks @Twitter, we can
always use more space 🚀
. . .
. * 🌏 *
🌞
* ☄️#280characters
Aside from NASA´S enthusiasm, the monthly American magazine delivered an endorsement for Twitter and thanked the social network for enabling this functionality.
Like it or not, extending tweet length to #280Characters has reinvigorated creativity on the platform https://t.co/M42fsWJJp9
— WIRED (@WIRED) November 9, 2017
On the other hand, other users utilized a more humorous approach. Rachel´s tweet below ranted about the fact that with so many technological breakthroughs you cannot listen to Garth Brooks music on iTunes or Spotify.
It's 2017 we have iPhone X, a fully functioning independent robot named Sophia, self driving cars, we even have 280 characters on Twitter, BUT WE STILL CANT GET GARTH BROOKS ON ITUNES OR SPOTIFY OR ANYWHERE
— Rachel (@RacheLynn_Pozzi) November 9, 2017
Twitter embroiled in controversies and facing user backlash to its verification process
The Social media networking company has faced financial pressures and struggled to attract new users.
Recently, the company announced that it banned advertising from Russian outlets Sputnik and RT.
The decision to prohibit all advertising was made on October 26 in light of recent congressional investigations into possible Russian interference during the presidential elections, according to the New York Times.
Twitter corroborated the news on its blog about the ban and the reasons behind it.
"Twitter has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately. This decision was based on the retrospective work we've been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government."
As of November 9, Twitter was once again caught in another uproar.
The Times report titled "Twitter, Facing Another Uproar, Pauses Its Verification Process," highlighted that the social network verified the profile of well-known white supremacist with a small blue checkmark.
Hey @jack: very active user, 2.1M followers here: this is disgusting. Verifying white supremacists reinforces the increasing belief that your site is a platform for hate speech. I don't want to give up Twitter, but I may have to. Who do you value more, users like me or him? https://t.co/5ymcNfFvH0
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) November 9, 2017
This event quickly caused fury and was made aware by a prominent user with the above message. Once again, the social media network caused a series of mistakes and Twitter´s CEO, Jack Dorsey responded.
We should’ve communicated faster on this (yesterday): our agents have been following our verification policy correctly, but we realized some time ago the system is broken and needs to be reconsidered. And we failed by not doing anything about it. Working now to fix faster. https://t.co/wVbfYJntHj
— jack (@jack) November 9, 2017