One of Twitter’s most anticipated features — the edit button — is still in development. But thanks to app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, we have an idea of how edits to embedded tweets on a website will carry over. If a tweet gets edited after it is embedded on a website (say, in a news article), the embedded tweet will still display the old text, but include a link to the newer version. Edited embedded tweets will display the text “There’s a new version of this Tweet," offering users an option to click and read the new text. Such a design seems to offer more transparency than simply displaying the new text up front, and may calm fears that giving users free rein to edit tweets will make it easier for bad actors to thrive.
Embedded Tweets will show whether it’s been edited, or whether there’s a new version of the Tweet
When a site embeds a Tweet and it gets edited, the embed doesn’t just show the new version (replacing the old one). Instead, it shows an indicator there’s a new version pic.twitter.com/mAz5tOiyOl
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 1, 2022
But what if users decided to embed a tweet that has already been edited? Instead of displaying the original text, the embedded tweet will display the new text (in other words, it’ll read exactly the same as how you found it). But below the edited tweet, there will be a timestamp and the text “Last edited."
It’s only been a few months since Twitter confirmed that an edit button is actually in development, so it could be a while until users see the feature in action. Keep in mind that Twitter plans on testing the feature on its premium Twitter Blue subscribers first, before rolling it out to the rest of the public. Given that Twitter recently increased the Blue subscription fee by two dollars, it may be worth just waiting.