Twitter Is Not Raising Its Character Limit to 10,000

People freaked out when it was revealed that Twitter might expand tweets to 10,000 characters, but it looks like it's not going to happen.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

Part of what made Twitter so popular in the first place was its emphasis on quick and easy. People don't always want more choices (actually, psychologists say choices are part of what makes us miserable in the modern age), and this idea extends to what people want to say on the Internet. With the constraint of only 140 characters, there's only so much you can say. It also makes the microblogging platform—as Twitter was originally known—totally impulsive. 

That's why it's a huge relief for those of us who love Twitter to hear that the company will not be expanding its character limit from 140 to 10,000, as Twitter was reportedly considering back in February. 

The Wrap recapped an appearance by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on NBC's Today show, in which he talked about keeping the 140-character limit. 

"It’s staying. It’s a good constraint for us,” Dorsey said. “We’re changing a lot, we’re always going to make Twitter better,” he said, after noting that the limit “allows for of-the-moment brevity.”

Twitter has been looking for ways to boost its sluggish growth. New users have reportedly been reluctant to jump into using the service because some of the elements that seem natural to long-term users now, are confusing to newbies. That means you can expect more changes to come, just not to that OG character limit. 

Some of those possible changes include a move from a chronological timeline to an algorithm based one that shows you tweets more like Facebook shows you posts it thinks you'll like. Other changes, like the move from favorites to hearts, have already happened.

As far as the expanded character limit idea goes, maybe the company called it off after catching a whiff of what its users thought about the possibility.

Latest in Life