Twitter reacts on increase to 280 character limit
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Twitter has announced on Tuesday that it is testing a new 280-character limit in all languages expect in Japenese, Chinese and Korean.
Aliza Rosen, the product manager of Twitter, said on her blog, "Interestingly, this isn't a problem everywhere people Tweet. For example, when I (Aliza) Tweet in English, I quickly run into the 140 character limit and have to edit my Tweet down so it fits. Sometimes, I have to remove a word that conveys an important meaning or emotion, or I don’t send my Tweet at all. But when Iku Tweets in Japanese, he doesn’t have the same problem. He finishes sharing his thought and still has room to spare. This is because in languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages, like English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French."
Jack Dorsey wrote on Twitter referring to the announcement. "140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit."
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In a tweet, Dorsey said he the new 280-character limit still keep Twitter true to its "essence." "Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet," Dorsey wrote. "And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence!", quoted TIME.
We expected (and ??!) all the snark & critique for #280characters. Comes with the job. What matters now is we clearly show why this change is important, and prove to you all it’s better. Give us some time to learn and confirm (or challenge!) our ideas. https://t.co/qJrzzIluMw
— jack (@jack) September 27, 2017
However, some Twitter users seemed not to be happy with improvisation which Twitter is only testing.
I do not support #280characters. Twitter had excelled in teaching Kenyans summary writing. Now they may write up to 440 pages of nothing.
— Nelson Havi (@NelsonHavi) September 27, 2017
Twitter is slowly turning into Facebook #280characters pic.twitter.com/iPsBPqBelM
— King Khenn06?????? (@SisterAbigail06) September 27, 2017
Let’s just not even pretend like #280characters is a good idea, @Twitter.
— deray mckesson (@deray) September 27, 2017
India will have no problem with #280characters on Twitter.
— Atul Khatri (@one_by_two) September 27, 2017
For years we have been used to handling 540+ characters in our Lok Sabha