Elon Musk, Twitter’s largest shareholder, polls followers for an edit button
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Elon Musk, Twitter’s largest shareholder, polls followers for an edit button
‘Please vote carefully’ responds Twitter’s new CEO
By Jon Porter@JonPorty Updated Apr 5, 2022, 8:58am EDT
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Elon Musk at Tesla’s recent factory opening in Germany. Photo by Christian Marquardt - Pool/Getty Images
Update April 5th, 8:55AM ET: On Tuesday morning, Twitter announced Elon Musk will join its board of directors. Musk said in a tweet that he plans on working with Twitter’s CEO and board “to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”
Elon Musk has wasted no time making his Twitter feature priorities clear after becoming its biggest shareholder yesterday. The Tesla CEO has polled his 80 million followers about whether they’d like to be able to edit their tweets after posting them. Twitter’s new CEO Parag Agrawal subsequently quote-tweeted Musk’s poll to say that “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” The phrasing mirrors a similar tweet from Musk about free speech on March 25th, days after he acquired almost 10 percent of the company.
The so-called “edit button” has been one of the most commonly requested features of the social media platform. In an ideal world it would simply allow users to clean up typos after publishing their tweets, but critics claim the feature could be ripe for abuse, allowing users to substantially change the meaning of tweets after they’ve been shared across the platform. Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey said that the company would “probably never” add an edit button in an interview in early 2020.
Responding to his poll, Twitter user “Everyday Astronaut” suggested that the edit button only be available for a short time after first tweeting, and that edited tweets contain a link showing the edit made. In response, Musk said, “that sounds reasonable.” Many other social media platforms already allow users to edit their posts, but as my colleague Casey Newton argued, none have seen this feature widely abused. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said Facebook had “solved” the edit button problem in response to Musk’s poll.
The poll comes days after Twitter’s official account said “we are working on an edit button,” but it made the statement on April Fool’s day (the most untrustworthy day of the year). However, this week Twitter product lead Michael Sayman quote tweeted this apparent gag, and called it the company’s “official statement” on the feature.
Musk is technically a passive shareholder of Twitter. He disclosed his investment in a Schedule 13G filing, which is normally reserved for stakes that have not been acquired “with any purpose, or with the effect, of changing or influencing the control of the issuer,” according to Bloomberg’s Matt Levine. But the Wall Street Journal reports that Musk’s filing didn’t include the standard certification saying he doesn’t intend to influence the company, and that the Tesla CEO simply wrote “Not Applicable” instead.
Musk’s tweets do not instruct Twitter to add an edit button, but his poll (which as of this writing is 73.7 percent in favor with over 2 million votes tallied) sends a pretty strong signal to Twitter about whether one should be added. “If the people vote overwhelmingly for something, it is at least *a* data point!” Musk wrote in a follow-up tweet, before calling crypto bots the “single most annoying problem” on the platform.
Whatever Musk’s intentions, Twitter’s CEO is clearly paying attention.
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There are 59 comments.
I should probably stock up on popcorn, or as is the trend, I should invest in a popcorn company.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 5:36 AM
Musk is like the pied piper and has the tech industry and media dancing to his merry tune, no matter how loaded, disingenuous or out right whacky it is. It reminds me of the issues the politics media had with Trump back in 2016.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 5:53 AM
Immense wealth is becoming more and more a recurring prophecy. Once you become rich (usually through inheritance or knowing the right venture or media people), you get tons of free publicity to become more rich and powerful through the news or buying bots (usually both), and if you use it to the maximum, it just keeps going in perpetuity. Social media and the stock market are the best examples. I mean crypto/NFT’s are solely based on your popularity. Musk Tweets out a picture of a dog and people make millions (including himself)…And most people in power see nothing wrong with this from an economic perspective alone, which is scary.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:39 AM
What an absolutely miserable world we live in. A sociopath who makes jumped-up electric go-karts and litters the sky with space junk is lauded as the apparent saviour of humanity, with legions of toady pinheads who fawn over his every word.
Prick doesn’t even remotely do any of the heavy lifting and takes all the glory. Just glass this fucking planet, release the Kraken or whatever, it’s not worth it.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 6:20 AM
EVs are "jumped up go carts"??? What the f are ICE vehicles, "dinosaur juice sucking, air polluters?" The attacks on EVs, whatever their brand name, makes no sense
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 7:52 AM
Seeing the comments here with people mindlessly hating on Elon is really depressing. The guy in my opinion is a genius who has done more than anyone of us will ever do within our lives.
Tesla has advanced the progress to electric vehicles by years and it’s mostly thanks to Elon. And these EVs are not "jumped-up electric go-karts", they are beating old ICE cars on almost every metric.
The same can be said about SpaceX, he’s literally the chief engineer and designer of their rockets, he doesn’t just take all the glory while everyone else is doing the hard work. Just ask anyone who has worked with him.
Now I’m not saying he hasn’t done dumb stuff, he’s human, of course he. But do we really need to call him a sociopath for that?
Edit: It sure is nice that The Verge has solved this hard problem of having an edit button. 
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:21 AM
The same can be said about SpaceX, he’s literally the chief engineer and designer of their rockets, he doesn’t just take all the glory while everyone else is doing the hard work.
Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.
The guy in my opinion is a genius who has done more than anyone of us will ever do within our lives.
The dude wasn’t even responsible for Tesla. All he did was buy what they already had.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 9:50 AM
Yeah, he bought Tesla when they were dime a dozen and then actually did the hardest part of making a car company.
It’s just destroys your credibility to attack that whole founding of Tesla thing.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 2:57 PM
Musk did not develop any of the technology in Tesla cars – his name isn’t on any meaningful patents – JB Straubel was the real engineer behind the cars. Tesla even lost a key engineer who claimed Musk "interfered" too much. Musk sued to be retroactively named a Tesla "co-founded" and he gave himself the titles of chief engineer and "technoking" – but he is none of those things, that’s just his ego. Musk’s background is entirely financial: X Dot Com, PayPal. Musk is a financial guy, not a chief engineer or rocket scientist.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 9:51 AM
You’re factually wrong. Musk graduated University of Pennsylvania with two degrees – Economics and Physics. He held two internships after that, one in a gaming company and one in energy storage. He then started a PhD program at Stanford in materials science, but left to start an internet start up, then PayPal, etc.
He’s not a licensed engineer, but it would be deceptive to say he has no background in science, technology or engineering.
I was following Tesla when he invested, and while he didn’t start the company, he was by far the biggest, very early investor. At the time I was on the side of Martin Eberhard and thought Musk was an asshole for pushing Eberhard out – but he was right. Eberhard wanted a two-speed transmission in the Roadster, which was a terrible idea from an engineering standpoint, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back and Musk forced Eberhard out.
I’m not a huge Musk fan, I think he’s making a lot of mistakes. But you can’t deny the success of SpaceX or Tesla. They are both stunning achievements and they would not have happened without Musk.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 11:39 AM
I’m sure you’re depressed (hearing your hero mocked can be damaging to the psyche). Maybe instead of wondering, go research Elon’s actual career. Yeah, he’s literally taken over the US Space Program by turning it into a private program that enriches him on the taxpayer dime, and Space X has done less than NASA ever did…Kind of like how he built Tesla up through huge tax credits and incentives then came out after the success and said no one should get them.
And that’s before we talk about the market manipulation, racial and sexism issues at his companies, how he started his path to wealth and suing to be named founder of Payapl, and the simple fact that every independent reviewer seems to rank Tesla last or near last in the quality department.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:44 AM
Admiration is the reality furthest from understanding.
you need to wake up.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:55 AM
the best description of Musk I have ever read. Your language is poetry and you should be commended.
Well done.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:59 AM
Insults are usually the last stand of those you can’t muster an actual sound argument/rebuttal.
That was all facts, you contributed nothing.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 11:15 AM
I’m fairly neutral on Elon as a person, there are just as many reasons to hate the guy as to like imo, but seriously who hurt you man?
First Tesla is the reason the EV market is what it is today, and like them or not they have become synonymous with electric vehicles for a large portion of the population. 2nd the whole "Space Junk" issue is a quite a bit over-blown by the media. Space X h as a grand plan to put 30k of these in orbit. Each one is the size of the table. Given that at any given time there are roughly 10k commercial airplanes in the skies around earth, and each one of those is quite a few times larger than a table, certainly larger than 3x, should I believe it it’s miraculous that we have a clear path to orbit in the first place through that heap of aeronautical litter in our atmosphere above our heads?
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:26 PM
Comparing satellites to airplanes shows that you do not understand the problem with space debris. A jet plane will eventually fall out of the sky if not powered, commercial planes fly slowly compared to satellites, are piloted by someone who can steer the plane and are in contact with air traffic control and planes are big enough to be tracked by radar.
Satellites orbit until the orbit degrades (which can take a very long time), have limited manuverability and move very fast, so fast that hitting one is catastrophic. If two collides they generate a lot of fast moving debris that have enough kinetic energy to penetrate a spacecraft.
Stop blaming "the media". Comparing satellites to air planes doesn’t hold up and "space junk" is a real thing. Why do you think the space agencies try to track the stuff in our orbit?
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 3:20 PM
How about solving the toxicity problem on Twitter around harassment and abuse before talking about useless "problems" like this? Why can people not just delete and repost if they spot an error like most normal people?
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 6:55 AM
Because by the time he realizes the mistake, like 60 seconds later already 5000 people liked it and 1000 reteewt and 300 commented it…
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:11 AM
and if he could then edit that post and retain those likes/retweets/responses, then the feature is fundamentally broken and will cause way more strife with trolls than people are going to be ready for.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:17 AM
Depends, you could receive a notification asking if you still what to keep the coment, or have a warning the retweet was for the original version and not the corrent one
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:22 AM
the notification would change the relationship people have with Twitter of a reaction loop with requiring they go back and review these things. As far as have a warning about what it was in relation to, the UI is pretty garbage as it is in relation to figuring out what links to what and would be rife for misappropriating intention of posters. Especially for a social network rife with trolls.
Again, would not be a great idea.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:31 AM
Just what we need, a known racist owning a chunk of Twitter.
(Although, I’m sure he isn’t the only one).
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 6:56 AM
still not seeing anything that says Elon Musk is racist. He’s done plenty of things that are worth criticizing, so what’s the point of making up nonsense?
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 9:59 AM
I mean, its right in those results. Companies don’t just magically become racist without some influence of those running them.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:08 AM
Because "thats rayciss" is the battlecry of manchildren.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:53 PM
But the Wall Street Journal reports that Musk’s filing didn’t include the standard certification saying he doesn’t intend to influence the company, and that the Tesla CEO simply wrote "Not Applicable" instead.
lol – what a jackass and this should be revisited and revised. Can’t have the man-baby twat not being held accountable.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 7:14 AM
Well that assumes he was the one reaching the ceo to talk about it, the Twitter ceo probably panicked when he saw Musk become the largest share older in seconds and throw this bone that blocks a hostile takeover.
He made them sweat in seconds. Bought almost 10% of the company with 1% of is wealth, he could become 50+% with ease…
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:14 AM
Obvious stunt is obvious. No CEO of a company of twitter’s size bases any decision whatsoever on a twitter poll.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 7:46 AM
Are you familiar with cancel culture? Because its the same damn thing.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:55 PM
Considering The Verge has an edit button, I’m mystified why having a similar feature on Twitter to fix your typos is controversial, unless anything that contains the name "Elon Musk" is by definition controversial.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 7:48 AM
There would need to be some rails for such a feature on Twitter.
Say you tweeted "I love puppies" and a bunch of people liked/retweeted it as soon as they saw it. Now you edit it to say "I love {socially unacceptable thing here}." What will the system do with the likes/retweets?
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:45 AM
Hide the retweet/like, send a notification to the person who retweeted/liked and ask if they should keep the retweet/like.
I’m also assuming a 1-3 minute timer similar to how The Verge is handling this.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:57 AM
there are people liking/retweeting things almost instantaneously.
Notifications would be interesting, but the whole thing with twitter is that you said and reacted in a blip in time. Maintenance of these things would change Twitter at an intrinsic level.
if it were me, I’d say any likes, retweets, or even responses (because things like "yep, me too" may’ve been used) would need to be wiped. So effectively, edit is just a rapid copy/delete/paste/modify mechanism.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 10:10 AM
Filtered through the lens of societal import and civic utility, the comments section of The Verge and Twitter are not analogous.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:51 AM
Verge’s edit button only works for 60 seconds and it’s needed since you can’t delete posts here.
On Twitter you can delete tweets at any time and repost them. An edit button isn’t needed at all.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 12:14 PM
So don’t use it?
"B-but people can change what they Tweeted!"
Evolve beyond constructing your view of reality based on Twitter? It’s e-e-easy! All you need is love!
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:57 PM
Except Musk has zero control over twitter. Like everything else he does, this is performative nonsense.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:10 AM
These Musk loyalists can come up for air now, he’s already smiling.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:30 AM
Coincidence that the day Musk got named to the board is the day I deleted my account from the shitty site and deleted the app.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:40 AM
Edit button would be a profound mistake for the platform.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 8:43 AM
Musk’s tweets do not instruct Twitter to add an edit button, but his poll (which as of this writing is 73.7 percent in favor with over 2 million votes tallied) sends a pretty strong signal to Twitter about whether one should be added.
Does it?
Because 1) the poll was clearly always going to favor the viewpoint Musk wanted by a heavy margin and 2) adding a feature based solely on what customers want isn’t always the smart choice or a strong signal that something is a good idea.
I personally think a small window to fix issues is fine but tweets shouldn’t be live during that window.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 9:43 AM
I personally think a small window to fix issues is fine but tweets shouldn’t be live during that window.
Agreed. But once a tweet goes live, it’s immutable.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 11:00 AM
So, maybe the ability to make a single edit with no time limit and a permanent archive of what was changed does make more sense. (Though, frankly, I find that it’s easy enough to delete a tweet and repost for any change that isn’t meant to be semi-deceptive so I’m still not sold that an edit button makes more sense than a ton of other quality of life updates.)
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:03 PM
Had to edit my first response because I stupidly confused an option we have here for what Twitter offers. Derp.
So what I would do if I were Twitter is offer two options when posting:
- Tweet Now: This is what they have now with no edit window.
- Tweet Preview: This is a shadow post that is not "live" for 5 minutes, time that can be used to fix typos or rethink whether shit-posting was a wise use of your time, or whatever. Once the 5 minutes are up, the Tweet posts live and would then be permanently fixed as normal.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:08 PM
Or just delete the tweet that has an error and repost it.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:44 PM
The problem with edits is tricker than people assume. How are quote tweets handled? What about responses that now may or may not reflect the content of the tweet?
Seems like more trouble than its worth, to me.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 2:05 PM
Cult leader polls cult followers who agree with him on everything and they agree with him. Film at 11.
Posted on Apr 5, 2022 | 1:43 PM
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