How Elon Musk Is Already Changing Things At Twitter

Soon after Parag Agrawal’s announcement, Elon Musk conducted a Twitter poll, asking if his followers want an edit button. At the time of writing this, more than 3 million Twitter users have responded to it and over 73% have voted in favor of an edit button. It looks like this poll is going to carry some weight; retweeting Musk’s poll, Agrawal wrote that the poll’s results will be important. 

It is a clear sign that, after years of requests from Twitter users — including Musk — the company is finally warming up to the idea that an edit button might be necessary. Over the platform’s tumultuous tenure as the internet’s text-centric social media platform of choice, a debate has raged over whether an edit button would be convenient or ruinous. On the bright side, the ability to correct typos and mistakes in crucial announcements sounds like a no-brainer. But Twitter also happens to be a Wild West of hot takes and a place where historically significant public messages are posted. 

The potential for chaos is very real. Bringing an edit button to Twitter is as much an ethical dilemma as it is a question of user convenience, and far more important than a simple Twitter poll would suggest. It remains to be seen if Musk’s first moves as Twitter’s largest shareholder will indicate his intended level of influence over its future.