Facebook Edits Editing, Hides Change Log In A Menu

While users continue to push Twitter to finally adopt an edit function, Facebook is quietly hiding its own. The social network is reportedly making changes to edited posts that will make it more difficult to notice a change has been made, according to Mashable.

There will no longer be an on-screen indicator that a post was changed; previously, a post would include an “Edited” label at the bottom.

Now users will have to open a separate menu to find a post’s change log. The menu is found by clicking on the arrow that appears in the upper right-hand corner of a post. This produces a drop-down menu with a number of options, including “View edit history.”

Clicking on this option will display changes that were made to the post, whether it be modified text, the addition of a link, or anything else a user may have noticed and wanted to change after hitting the post button.

While the change is minor cosmetically, it does denote a significant change in user transparency. The extra step to spot changes may hide a considerable amount of modifications that change the entire content of any comments that follow. Changes appear as though they will continue to be preserved in the edit history, but no longer as easily accessible as tapping the “Edited” message placed directly on the post.

The change to the edit indicator doesn’t appear to be live for all users at this time. A spokesperson for Facebook told IBTimes the change has been rolling out for about a year.

"You can still see whether someone has edited a post, but you’re right— we’ve removed the small, gray 'Edited' label on edited posts," the spokesperson confirmed. They confirmed the new edit history would be accessible in the drop down—or chevron—menu located in the upper right-hand corner of a post. "Anyone who is in the audience for the post can see, via the chevron menu, whether or not it’s been edited," the spokesperson said.

The change, should it take effect on the platform as a whole, would be one of the first overhauls to the edit feature since it was introduced in 2012. The feature was first introduced to allow users to make changes to comments and was expanded to status updates in 2013.

The ability to make changes to posts continues to be accessible. Users can hover over any post or comment they have made and the edit feature will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the text box.