Whether you like it or not, it’s time to break free from the constraints of 140 characters. Twitter announced on Tuesday it’s officially expanding the character limit to 280 for nearly all of its users. Which, in case you were wondering, is just exactly as long as this paragraph.
140+140!
— jack (@jack) November 7, 2017
The company’s decision came after a 280-character trial run that began in September among a select few people who mostly protested the change (at least until they started unironically writing long tweets).
Twitter explained in a blog post why it decided to make the tweak permanent:
Historically, 9% of Tweets in English hit the character limit. This reflects the challenge of fitting a thought into a Tweet, often resulting in lots of time spent editing and even at times abandoning Tweets before sending. With the expanded character count, this problem was massively reduced – that number dropped to only 1% of Tweets running up against the limit. Since we saw Tweets hit the character limit less often, we believe people spent less time editing their Tweets in the composer. This shows that more space makes it easier for people to fit thoughts in a Tweet, so they could say what they want to say, and send Tweets faster than before.
The company added that even though the option exists to write 280 characters, most people end up keeping their tweets brief and below 140 characters. (The change won’t apply to Chinese-, Korean-, or Japanese-language users.) But already the expanded limit has come in handy — for making fun of the expanded limit:
'Extravagant':
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) November 7, 2017
baroque, devilish, exorbitant, excessive, extreme, fancy, immoderate, inordinate, insane, intolerable, lavish, overdue, overextravagant, overmuch, overweening, plethoric, profligate, steep, stiff, spendthrift, thriftless, towering, unconscionable, undue, unmerciful
In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories. *DUN DUN*
— Law and Order: SVU (@nbcsvu) November 7, 2017
Prolific Twitter user President Donald Trump’s refusal to contain his message within the old 140-character limit once led to a harrowing nine-minute pause while officials at the Pentagon feared he was about to start nuclear war:
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
But it only took Trump a few minutes to send his first 280-character tweet:
Getting ready to make a major speech to the National Assembly here in South Korea, then will be headed to China where I very much look forward to meeting with President Xi who is just off his great political victory.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2017