Will Twitter’s new edit button affect Elon Musk’s failed takeover bid?
Twitter has announced it will be rolling out a test of an edit button for tweets for users who pay for its premium Twitter Blue service.
A hotly requested feature may soon be coming to social media platform Twitter after it was announced that an edit button is being tested, though not for the general public yet.
Those who pay $4.99 a month will be able to edit their tweets “a few times” within 30 minutes of it being posted. Users will be able to see the time and edit history of a post. A spokeswoman said Twitter was testing the feature to “anticipate what might happen if we bring it to everyone.”
The same day he explained his 9 percent stake in the company, Elon Musk tweeted a poll asking users if they wanted an edit button. The ‘yse’ response garnered 70 percent of the votes.
Some concern remains that an edit button could spread misinformation as well as make it seem people were relying to something they didn’t mean to and take their words out of context.
However, this change from Twitter will do little to change the mind of billionaire Musk in his bid to disentangle himself from the legal mess he created. Twitter is bringing a lawsuit against him to hold him to his original purchase of the company back in April. He is backing out, claiming his problems remain to be the lack of security on Twitter as well as the number of spam bots on the platform. Changes relating to an edit button are unlikely to sway him.
What is the latest with Musk’s aborted Twitter takeover?
Peiter Zatko, who was fired from his role as head of security at Twitter in January, has filed a whistleblower complaint against Twitter. He warned that the company was “grossly negligent in several areas of information security.”
This was pounced upon by Musk who has added that as another reason for why his bid retraction was justified.
“These allegations, if true, demonstrate that Twitter has breached the following provisions of the merger agreement, thereby giving the Musk parties the right to terminate the merger agreement,” Musk’s lawyers said in a letter sent to Twitter earlier this week. Zatko has been subpoenaed by Musk so will now have to supply evidence in the trial.
The beginning of the trial is set for October 17 with billions of dollars on the line.