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Twitter Rolls Out Expanded 280 Character Word Limit And And People Are Not Convinced

Demise of 140 character limit greeted like the end of the world.
Graeme Demianyk
By 

Senior Editor, HuffPost UK

It was the end of the era and, for some, the end of civilisation.

On Tuesday night, Twitter announced it was drawing a veil over the 140-character limit for tweets, doubling the capacity to 280 characters.

The caveats are this: the company appears to be trialling the idea which it has flirted with before for “a small group”, and it won’t apply to Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter took to Twitter to explain the move.

This is a small change, but a big move for us. 140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence! https://t.co/TuHj51MsTu

— jack (@jack) September 26, 2017

But even before most had time to read the small print, reaction poured in ...

Some were keeping it all in perspective.

Not to be dramatic but I want to die https://t.co/fMDVeYjJVu

— Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) September 26, 2017

If any of you thinks about putting 280 characters into my timeline i swear to god im blocking you https://t.co/hU9yOovJwC

— Alan White (@aljwhite) September 26, 2017

Twitter to trial 280-character tweets. Presumably in a few years we'll realise this had some colossal political impact on the Western world https://t.co/TD7znlM00g

— Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) September 26, 2017

Actually judging by my timeline this announcement is already the end of civilisation as we know it

— Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) September 26, 2017

Others eyed the negatives.

Longer speeches are almost always worse than short ones, the same will be true of Tweets

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) September 26, 2017

But there could be positives.

on the plus side, jk rowling can now go into way more detail when she tweets about which malfoys wouldve supported brexit

— Kate Knibbs 🐋 (@KateKnibbs) September 26, 2017

And there were some decent jokes.

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

My first 280 character tweet. pic.twitter.com/faXFh7GzHr

— Ben King (@MrBen_King) September 26, 2017

pic.twitter.com/xrS1lMYBNy

— Ciarán McGonagle (@cpmcgonagle) September 26, 2017

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!#280Characters

— EvRo (@_EvRo_) September 26, 2017

139 characters pic.twitter.com/WkfdXL8oLh

— Caitlin Kelly (@caitlin__kelly) September 26, 2017

And inevitably, thoughts turned to Donald Trump.

If you're upset about the 280 characters thing, just imagine what John Kelly must be thinking

— Amir Tibon (@amirtibon) September 26, 2017

With 280 characters, North Korea doesn't stand a chance.

— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) September 26, 2017

Twitter spox says the group of users with the 280 limit is "totally random" and therefore no word on whether @realDonaldTrump is among them.

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) September 26, 2017

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