NOVEMBER | #280characters

November 7, 2017, marked a major turning point for Twitter as the platform doubled up its long-standing 140 character-limit to 280 characters. Instead of a regular character count, tweets in the making now come with a little circle in the bottom right corner that visually indicates how much space they’ve used as opposed to how much is left. The move comes in the wake of Twitter’s ongoing interest in retaining new users and its commitment to allowing people from all languages to express themselves with ease. And while many users were quick to welcome the upgrade, some of them showed mixed reactions, viewing the new character limit as a potential threat to Twitter’s inherent makeup as a brevity-driven platform. Corresponding hashtag #280Characters eventually soared to the top as the Twitter community flooded the platform with various thoughts, jokes and opinions about the fundamental update. And while it was hard for many loyal users to outgrow the platform’s signature 140-character limit, others conversely decided to give longer tweets a shot. But all in all, it was sarcasm and humor that took center stage, with most active Twitter users chiming in to add their two cents on the new feature.