In comedy and in business timing can be everything, and when it comes to the latter category it’s safe to say that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s timing is impeccable.
After buying a multibillion-dollar stake in Twitter, becoming the social media platform’s biggest shareholder, the world’s richest man had a little fun by trolling those who run the company via a poll on Monday asking users of the social media platform if they want an “edit” button — Musk cleverly misspelling “yes” in the choices available. With nearly 3 in 4 respondents answering to the affirmative, there was little doubt about how the consumer felt about the feature.
Lo and behold, the very next day Twitter made a big announcement: “now that everyone is asking… yes, we’ve been working on an edit feature since last year! no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll 😉 we’re kicking off testing within @TwitterBlue. Labs in the coming months to learn what works, what doesn’t, and what’s possible.”
now that everyone is asking…
yes, we’ve been working on an edit feature since last year!
no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll 😉
we’re kicking off testing within @TwitterBlue Labs in the coming months to learn what works, what doesn’t, and what’s possible.
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) April 5, 2022
Twitter did a little trolling of its own on April 1 — aka April Fools Day. At least, that’s how it appeared when the company tweeted: “we are working on an edit button.”
Tuesday proved to be a busy day for Twitter, as CEO Parag Agrawal also announced that Musk will be joining their board of directors after buying 73,486,938 shares of the company.
He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on @Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger in the long-term. Welcome Elon!
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 5, 2022
Musk responded: “Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”
For some, change never comes easy and there were plenty of naysayers responding to the big announcement about a possible edit feature, which Meta’s Tom Gara characterized thusly: “My micro-generation’s moon landing, happening in front of our eyes.”
Here’s a sampling of the responses to the story from Twitter:
not sure how to feel about this but one thing I know *for sure* is that this will be abused in ways we can’t even imagine yet https://t.co/0RUurnXlxA
— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) April 5, 2022
.@matt_levine‘s take on the edit button is the only thing you need to read:https://t.co/HoDbUvuO0h https://t.co/6s7G3qGWkQ pic.twitter.com/G3BAsjvYCv
— Bloomberg Opinion (@bopinion) April 5, 2022
Next, they’re going to claim they’re going to stop being partisan and arbitrary in banning people and it’s something they’ve been planning for a while. https://t.co/JT6DdTfM1F
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) April 5, 2022
I think one of the things that makes Twitter such a credible source of information is that there is no edit button that allows a person go and change their words after they have posted it. Words + Time stamp + Author.
I think it should stay!
— Tola (@adetolaov) April 5, 2022
I was really excited to hear about the new Twitter edit button until I found out it will only work on your own tweets.
— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) April 5, 2022
having been on this platform for roughly 35 percent of my life (a fact that melts my skull) i feel confident that everyone on here is definitely mature enough to handle this feature in good faith and that there will be no unintended consequences whatsoever. https://t.co/wthF34s1N3
— Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) April 5, 2022
Here’s my argument against an edit button: What if a tweet goes viral, lots of retweets & millions of impressions, & then the author completely changes the meaning? Not just a grammatical fix, but a TOTAL ideological change? Or shameless self-promote?
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) April 5, 2022
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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