Twitter needs to be thoughtful in its approach to a potential edit feature: Experts

TORONTO — As Elon Musk moves forward with his efforts to buy Twitter and potentially bring in a range of changes, social media experts say adding an edit feature is not as simple as it seems and could have negative consequences.

Jim Anderson, social media sector lead at venture capital firm Glasswing Ventures, says an edit option could create an avenue for misinformation to propagate.

A potential scenario that could come up, he explains, involves a malicious actor tweeting something positive or innocuous, the tweet gaining traction, people retweeting it, and the original poster then going in and making edits, ultimately changing the meaning of the tweet.

Philip Mai, co-director of the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson University, says “the devil is in the details.”

To mitigate some of the risks, Mai says an easy and accessible one-click link or button that takes users to a dedicated page or pop-up info box showing the changes made to a particular tweet, similar to Google Docs, could be a helpful approach.

Musk has hinted that an edit feature could be coming after polling Twitter users about it earlier in April, something that has much more resonance after he struck a deal to acquire the tech giant for US$44 billion on Monday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 27, 2022.

The Canadian Press