Twitter Is Testing Doubling The Character Limit On Tweets

Twitter is testing a longer limit on the amount of characters you can include in a tweet, doubling the current limit of 140 to 280.

The feature is only available to a small group of users right now. Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has the ability to write up to 280 characters, and here's what a tweet with that many characters looks like.

In explaining the move, Twitter says that in some languages — like English, Spanish, Portuguese or French — users run into the problem of fitting their thoughts into 140 characters. But that same problem doesn't exist for those who tweet in languages like Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

"We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, so we're doing something new: we're going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean)," Twitter said in a blog post announcing the change.

The feature is only available to a small group right now, and the company said it wants to try out the option first before launching the new product to everyone.

The company says the character limit is a "major cause of frustration for people Tweeting in English," and that there may be an "emotional attachment to 140 characters." It also says that Twitter is about "brevity" but is planning on doubling the amount of characters in a Tweet.

Twitter users had a decidedly strong reaction to the announcement, and it was mostly one-sided.

This story will be updated.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images