Twitter's New Rules For Its 140-Character Limit Will Reportedly Be Applied On Sept. 19

Back in May, Twitter announced its plans to give users more flexibility in composing text tweets by not including attachments or quoted tweets to the 140-character limit. Sources are now saying that the change will apply starting Sept. 19.

When Twitter first announced its plans, the company didn’t provide any information on when exactly it was going to be implemented only stating that it would be made available “over the coming months.” Twitter decided to announce the plan in advance to notify developers, so that the site will work perfectly when it’s rolled out.

Twitter has remained quiet about when the changes are going to be applied, but now it looks like it would be arriving next Monday, according to The Verge which cited “two sources familiar with the company’s business. However, The Verge recognized that plans for the rollout could still change.

When the new rules on the 140-character limit are applied, it will affect four of Twitter’s most important features: replies, media attachments, retweets/quotes and tweets starting with “.@.” When replying to a tweet, “@names” will not count as part of the 140-character limit, as well as attachments like photos, GIFs, videos and polls. Users will also be able to retweet or quote their own tweets.

Currently, if a user wants to publicly show tweets that start with a username, they would have to use ".@". When the new rules are applied, a users will only have to retweet a mention they want to broadcast broadly.

The only question that remains unanswered is how Twitter plans to roll out these new rules. It’s possible that all of these will be available immediately on Sept. 19, but Twitter could also roll it out in stages. Either way, users should expect an update of some sort next Monday.

Twitter has always been a place where users are able to express themselves freely. It has improved over the years by allowing users to tweet photos, videos, GIFs and even music. Although the 140-character limit is a signature feature of the platform, it does feel restrictive. This upcoming change to the platform is intended to resolve exactly just that.