It’s now much easier to fit your thoughts into a single tweet. Twitter has announced several adjustments to its character count limit, and the changes are rolling out today, September 19.
The social media site now lets you write more by counting less of the elements that make up a tweet toward those 140 characters. Images, videos, GIFs, and polls will no longer count toward the pesky limit.
Say more about what's happening! Rolling out now: photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and Quote Tweets no longer count toward your 140 characters. pic.twitter.com/I9pUC0NdZC
— Twitter (@twitter) September 19, 2016
As we all know, images, GIFs, etc. quickly eat into those precious characters, so these new rules should give us a nice amount of additional breathing room.
There’ve only been two other times (that we can think of!) when Twitter’s greatly improved how we converse on their social network: Years ago they limited how many characters a URL took up, and more recently they made it easy for users to retweet something with an added comment of their own.
Monday’s is not to be confused with Twitter’s interest in greatly expanding the character count, which first surfaced earlier this year. There was so much backlash that founder Jack Dorsey had to walk back the idea, admitting that they were kicking it around, but they ultimately decided to drop it.
I think these new rules are a perfect way to balance the desire of users to write longer messages with the importance of keeping tweets short. Bring ’em on!
Twitter says the changes are rolling out now — it shouldn’t be too long until you get to enjoy the new rules.
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