Confirmed: Twitter’s 140 Character Limit is Becoming Much More Flexible

Max Buondonno May 24, 2016

Twitter has officially announced that after some speculation and rumors around the internet, the social media site will no longer count images, videos, GIFs links, user mentions (@mention), and more as characters in tweets. Only letters, numbers, and special characters such as “$” or “%” will take up room in the 140 spaces available. So in other words, no, Twitter is not expanding their character limit. Just making it more flexible.

In the coming months we’ll make changes to simplify Tweets including what counts toward your 140 characters, so for instance, @names in replies and media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) will no longer “use up” valuable characters.

Here’s a complete list of all the new features coming to Twitter, including the ability to quote and retweet yourself:

Here’s what will change:

Replies: When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. This will make having conversations on Twitter easier and more straightforward, no more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group.

Media attachments: When you add attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your Tweet. More room for words!

Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself: We’ll be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed.

Goodbye, .@: These changes will help simplify the rules around Tweets that start with a username. New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. (That means you’ll no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which people currently use to broadcast Tweets broadly.) If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Retweet it to signal that you intend for it to be viewed more broadly.

According to Twitter’s blog post, they’re planning to release more features that will allow users to “get even more from [their] Tweets.”

In addition to the changes outlined above, we have plans to help you get even more from your Tweets. We’re exploring ways to make existing uses easier and enable new ones, all without compromising the unique brevity and speed that make Twitter the best place for live commentary, connections, and conversations.

You’re gonna have to wait a few months for these changes to take place, as Twitter has stated that they’re giving developers time to adjust their apps and API in order for tweets and features to not be out-of-place and non-presentable.

twitter_may24