Twitter rumored to raise tweet character limit to 10,000

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO

Twitter will expand the character limit of its iconic tweets from 140 to 10,000, according to multiple sources speaking to technology news outlet Re/Code in a report published Tuesday.

The change is expected to come at or near the end of the first quarter, in late April or early May. The 10,000 character limit matches the restrictions of Twitter’s direct messaging platform. The plan is reportedly titled “Beyond 140” and would come amid a series of other changes to the microblogging service since co-founder Jack Dorsey took over as chief executive last year.

The elongated tweets would be capped at 140 characters in most users’ timelines. Interested readers would then click to expand the tweet so they can read the whole extended message.

Twitter declined to comment on the report.

Users and tech commentators have been quick to bash the idea, with one user tweeting, “I swear to God the first person who tweets over 140 characters gets unfollowed and blocked immediately.”

The condensed nature of Twitter’s main feature has been bolstered as a benefit, with earlier attempts from third-party start-ups to allow for lengthened tweets, like TwitLonger, never finding broad appeal.

However, Twitter has been crushed by long-term social media rival Facebook in terms of user growth. Facebook, founded in 2004, boasts 1.39 billion monthly active users, while Twitter, founded in 2006, has only 320 million. Image-sharing platform Instagram, founded in 2010 and now owned by Facebook, has more than 400 million monthly active users.

The slackened growth caused the company to oust CEO Dick Costolo in June. Dorsey, who is also CEO of payments system Square, has brought in a series of changes, including the launch of Moments, a curated content service.

Last month, Twitter began experimenting with changing timelines to allow users to first see more relevant tweets, instead of its traditional reverse chronological order.