Twitter is rumoured to be developing an edit feature this time, for tweets embedded on a website. Reverse Engineering Expert, Jane Manchun Wong says the goal is to let a follower know whether or not an embedded tweet has been edited by a Twitter user.
Per Wong,
“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.”
As you can see, the above screenshot prove Wong’s discovery is correct. It features two versions of the same embedded tweet.
The tweet at the top of her screenshot appears to be a corrected or an edited version of the tweet below it. The tweet embed at the top of the screenshot (the edited tweet) features a message that says “Last edited 6:30 PM · Aug 1, 2022” right under the text of the edited tweet.
The tweet at the bottom of the screenshot appears to be the original tweet and contains a typo (notice it has no letter “d”) that is later seen to be corrected in the tweet at the top of the screenshot.
The tweet embed at the bottom of the screenshot (the original tweet) also features a message, but this message is different. This message says: “There’s a new version of this Tweet.”
In essence, the tweet embed feature the Social Media giant, report says is currently being developed, is a method for edited tweets to continue to be transparent about whatever changes is/are made to them, as Wong mentions in the aforementioned tweet and in a later reply tweet to @BestLiveAudio.
By doing this, the tweet embed won’t just change into the freshly changed version of the tweet without context if a website does include someone else’s tweet in an article and that tweet is later edited by the person who tweeted.
Followers could still view the original tweet along with a “indicator,” in Wong’s words, that lets them know there is a changed or edited version of the tweet available. Or they could view a tweet that has been changed and has a date stamp next to it.
This move is a step closer to Twitter launching the long-awaited edit button. Although this may not seems to quench the thirst of most users, it is an essential feature given that Twitter wants to add an edit feature for tweets.
At least when you see a note that reads “There’s a new version of this Tweet you can be confident that even if the author decides to chnage the entire tweet, the embed will at least indicate that it was edited.
