Twitter has begun rolling out its long-awaited ‘edit’ button for posts on the platform.

In an announcement yesterday, the social media firm revealed the new feature will be made available for Twitter Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Twitter said the edit button will also be rolled out to US-based Blue subscribers in due course, but gave no update on a timeline for British users.

The launch of the Twitter edit button is one of the most hotly anticipated changes ever made by the social media firm. Here’s how it will work.

How will the Twitter edit button work?

Twitter’s new edit function will enable users to make changes to their tweets after they’ve been published.

“Edit Tweet is a feature that lets people make changes to their Tweet after it’s been published,” the firm explained in a blog post last month. “Think of it as a short period of time to do things like fix typos, add missed tags, and more.”

The feature will only be available for up to 30 minutes after posting a tweet. However, during this time you will be able to edit or alter posts up to a maximum of five times.

test went well, Edit Tweet is now rolling out to Twitter Blue members in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand!

US coming soon pic.twitter.com/7NNPRC0t1I

— Twitter Blue (@TwitterBlue) October 3, 2022

By placing a limit on the number of times a tweet can be edited, Twitter hopes to prevent users from abusing the feature.

The social media firm previously said that the 30-minute time limit will help “protect the integrity” of conversation on the platform.

Built-in Transparency

If you post a tweet and decide you want to alter it, there will be a record of changes attached to the tweet. And other users can see what changes you’ve made.

The inclusion of this post ‘history’ feature also forms a key part of Twitter’s attempts to protect the integrity of discussion on the site and prevent misuse.

Moving forward, edited tweets will display a “last edited” icon which takes users to the full record of changes, including timestamps.

Can I edit any tweet?

According to the Twitter Blue Labs support page, users will only be able to edit original tweets and quote tweets.

At this stage, threads, replies, co-tweets and Twitter Circle posts cannot be edited. Similarly, tweets posted via third-party apps cannot be edited.

A full list of what can – and can’t – be edited is available here.

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