Popular social media platform, Twitter, has made adjustments on the way the platform works with an intention to increase the characters and letters in a post. Ordinarily, the platform allows a single post to have a maximum of 140 characters. However, this week, the platform announced that they had changed what types of content use up the 140 character limit. To increase users’ character limit, the platform will no longer count Twitter handles in replies, media attachments (such as videos, photos and polls) as well as quoted tweets. By not counting them against the 140 character limit that can make up a post, it says they hope to allow for ‘richer’ conversations that are easier to follow on Twitter and ensures people can attach media to tweets without sacrificing the characters they have to express themselves. Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey said the platform was aiming at giving users of the platform more expressiveness. “Generally, we want to make sure we’re encouraging a whole lot more conversations on Twitter. This is the most notable change we’ve made in recent times around conversation in particular, and around giving people the full expressiveness of the 140 characters. I’m excited to see even more dialogue because of this,” he said. The development is expected to increase the usability of the platform, especially for users who use the platform to make lengthy announcements that often go slightly past the character limit. Local enthusiasts of the platform say it will come in handy for public and private agencies making long announcements through the platform. “Some of us use the platform to explain to our clients on developments in products and services. With this it makes announcements through Twitter easier,” Aimable Niyogaba, an advertiser, told The New Times. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
