Twitter Will Expand Character Limit To 10,000: Reports

Twitter, the social messaging site known for its users’ short, instant and usually witty reactions to current events and pop culture as they unfold, is expanding its tweet character limit from 140 to 10,000, according to multiple reports.

Twitter’s 140-character limit has been the social media platform’s defining feature since its 2006 launch. The limit was initially introduced to fit tweets into text messages, which have a 160-character limit.

But the limit also encourages brevity, cleverness and more immediate reaction, as opposed to a platform like Facebook, where users can take more time to craft longer messages.

Re/code first reported the change Tuesday morning, and the Wall Street Journal confirmed Twitter’s character limit increase Tuesday afternoon.

Twitter has not confirmed the specific change, but CEO Jack Dorsey said, appropriately, through his Twitter account Tuesday afternoon that users are already sending strings of Tweets or screenshotting blocks of text to communicate longer messages.

“Instead, what if that (screenshotted) text... was actually text?” Dorsey tweeted in, yes, screenshot form. “Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That’s more utility and power.”

Twitter shares had dropped nearly three percent following the announcement.

Those worried about long rants or manifestos clogging their Twitter timelines, though, can breathe a sigh of relief.

Both Re/code and the Journal’s reports say that longer tweets will only show the first 140 characters in a timeline. Users can click an expand-type button that lets them see the rest of the tweet, similar to

The move appears to be yet another strategy for Twitter to kickstart its stagnant growth. It has experimented with everything from sponsored tweets, taking timelines out of reverse chronological order and inserting a “moments” tab, which shows Tweets about the days top stories or trends.

In August, Twitter increased the character limit in direct messages to 10,000.