Twitter Edit Button: a proposed method

Proposal overview: when a user edits a tweet, all interactions (likes, replies, poll votes) would be hidden. Interactors would be notified and would have the option to edit their response, delete their response, or let it stand.

There has been a lot of discussion about Elon Musk buying Twitter, which is undertandable. Any change in ownership in something which is so much a part of so many lives would be cause for concern.

One of the many things I’ve taught is Change Management and I assume they’ll be thoughtful about how users are going to frame the change (framing affects action, such as withdrawing from, or joining the service).

There is certainly an opportunity here to improve the service in ways that most current users will like.

I polled my readers and not surprisingly, the addition of an “Edit Button” was the number one choice. It’s also been indicated by both Twitter and Musk that it is on the horizon.

I also see a lot of skepticism about it…about ways it could be abused and/or misleading.

One obvious problem: suppose that you liked a tweet, and then it was edited to make a completely different, perhaps even opposite, statement. Who likes a tweet can be seen publicly (at least in the current state, and I don’t expect that to change). It would appear that you endorsed something you didn’t.

This is my proposal.

First, I do think editing shouldn’t be without a cost: it should be a carefully considered decision (although it won’t always be). There will be benefits which often outweigh the costs, though.

Why would people edit a tweet?

In my case (and I tweet a lot), it’s almost always because of an error on my part. It could be a simple typo, or an omitted word (people who don’t proofread might be surprised at how often someone inadvertently leaves out the word “not”). More rarely, it’s a factual error: I recently included a soccer penalty kick in a poll of “uncontested” scoring opportunities in sports, and a reader was kind enough to point out that it wasn’t…the goalie is still there and could block it. That was just a stupid mistake on my part: I knew that. If I could have edited the poll, I would have said it a different way.

Without an edit button, my only choice in that poll example would be to delete it and repost it (or explain I was wrong, which is what I did). However, everyone who voted in the poll would have their votes unretrievably erased, as would be the case for people who replied or liked the post. That seems unfair to them.

What I suggest is that when a post is edited, all interactions are hidden (if there were 100 likes, it would show zero). The post is labeled as edited. All of the interactors receive a notification. They then can choose to leave it hidden (effectively deleting it), edit it, or let it stand (having it show again)..

This would actually increase engagement with Twitter, which would be a good thing for them.

Now, there are a couple of reasonable objections to this.

One is the number of notifications that it might cause to go to active interactors. I would address that by letting users choose to opt out of those notifications by either blanket approval to reveal again or blanket approval to leave it hidden. That could have additional sophistication: you might be able to tailor your instructions to specific accounts.

Another thing is the legal and historical record. The answer to that is to have the original tweet still available in some way, but not visible by default. It could be available on request from particular types of agencies, or simply available to be viewed by anyone by choosing to do so.

I work in healthcare and something like that happens in electronic medical records (EMRs). If an error is made in a patient’s chart, it would be confusing for other providers and staff to see it. It can be hidden and a corrected version displayed, but the old version is recoverable for review.

This would obviously require quite a bit of software design and implementation, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be beyond Twitter’s capabilities.

Please feel free to let me know what you think of the idea, and to propose improvements. You can do that by replying to this post or commenting on when it is posted to my Twitter account at

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