Twitter Increased Their Limit to 280 Characters and Purists Are Upset

Don't get between a Twitter purist and their 140-character limit.

Twitter is trialling an increase in the number of characters that you can Tweet out in a single post. At the moment it sits neatly at 140 characters, but if Twitter decide to roll-out the change to all accounts, it will double in size to 280. Madness.

While not everyone has had the chance just yet to voice their concerns and thoughts in 280 characters, the trial is already getting mixed responses. Purists argue that Twitter was made for concise points. Others argue that the increase will reduce those pesky 50-Tweet threads when people go HAM on a subject.

But there were others who were just plain mad that Twitter still hadn't introduced an Edit function.

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

— alan🐛 (@bookmaggot) September 26, 2017

Of course, the negative nellies had their say.

The 280-character limit is a terrible idea. The whole beauty of Twitter is that it forces you to express your ideas concisely (1/47)

— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) September 26, 2017

There's this thing called a Thread. You may find it interesting.

— Beat City Tone (@BeatCityTone) September 26, 2017

I have a similar, but better idea: how about limiting the president's tweets to 0 characters

— Bill P (@Bill_TPA) September 26, 2017

What tweets will look like with the 280 character limit pic.twitter.com/g2EopSXTle

— Darth Vader (@DepressedDarth) September 26, 2017

Some were a little more positive about the change.

I think I have the 280 character limit upgrade now, which means my powers have increased dramatically. I can tell so many more dad jokes in a single tweet, so I absolutely love this. For example:

What did the Buffalo say to his little boy when he dropped him off at school? Bison

— Roqayah Chamseddine (@roqchams) September 26, 2017

Me thinking about how a 280 character limit will allow me to tweet two verses of Mariah Carey lyrics instead of just one. pic.twitter.com/E94LhAv0jJ

— ANTFERNY (@ANTFERNY) September 26, 2017

It's a brave new world.

Photo: iStock.com/bombuscreative