Rumors have been steadily flowing about whether Twitter would lift its 140 character limit, but according to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the rumors have been heavily exaggerated.
“It’s staying,” Dorsey said in an interview with the Today Show. The interview marks the first time that the company has denied that the character limit will be changing.
Of course, let’s remember that this is the same Jack Dorsey who said last month that Twitter would not “reorder timelines,” in response to the social network’s new algorithmic timeline. Only a few days later Twitter began rolling out the new timeline that effectively reorders the posts based on what it thinks you’ll find interesting, instead of chronological order. Thankfully the new timeline can be switched off, however it’s still important to take what he says with a grain of salt.
In the end, Dorsey’s comments on the character limit may come down to semantics. It’s clear that the 140 character limit is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean that the company won’t bring in an option to write more, or write more under certain circumstances. Of late many users have been demonstrating the need for higher character limits by taking screenshots of long messages and posting the image rather than writing out the message as a tweet.
Dorsey only returned as CEO last year, after co-founding the company and originally serving as CEO until 2008. Since his return, Dorsey has been pushing for the company to completely rethink the way it operates. Compared to the timeline, changing the 140 character limit will arguably be an even bigger move, as Twitter has long revolved around posting quick thoughts (or microblogging) rather than long messages.
