Should Twitter Have an Edit Button?

Function with Anil Dash

If you're an active Twitter user, you've probably made a typo or a mistake in a tweet before that you wish you could correct. You could delete the tweet and just write another one, or Twitter could create a feature that users have adamantly requested for years -- an edit button. Even Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey has mulled over this feature, and according to recent news, it may just happen.

Enabling a button to edit your tweets sounds like an easy thing to set up from a user standpoint, but like most technological features, implementing it comes with its own positives and negatives.

This week on Function, we look at this popular feature request from the expert and the user side. We talk with Leslie Miley, former engineering manager at Twitter, about the behind-the-scenes technical and ethical considerations that need to take place to carry out this feature from a product level.

We also talk to Andy Carvin, author, professor, and former social media editor at NPR. Andy knows firsthand how one misinformed tweet can have a dangerous ripple effect, and talks about how the possibility of editing that tweet may have caused even more damage.

Guests

• Leslie Miley
• Andy Carvin

Other Links

• Charles Johnson, one of the Internet’s most infamous trolls, has finally been banned from Twitter (The Washington Post)
• NPR's Giffords Mistake: Re-Learning the Lesson of Checking Sources (WBUR News)