Twitter is keeping 140-character limit on tweets

Jack Dorsey, Twitter's co-founder and CEO, said the San Francisco-based company won't be expanding the potential length of tweets users post on its service. In an interview with NBC's "Today" show, Dorsey appeared to mark the 10th anniversary of the company. The exec, who returned as CEO
of Twitter last fall, sent the very first tweet on March 21, 2006. Dorsey said the 140-character limit, which dictates how long people's posts can be, will remain in place despite rumors he was considering a change.

 CEO Jack Dorsey's first tweet

"It's staying, it's a good constraint for us and it allows for of-the-moment brevity. The 140-character limit isn't going anywhere".

 

says Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

That's a seeming about-face from rumors Twitter was considering expanding tweets to 10,000 characters (or about 2,000 words). In January, Dorsey fanned those rumors by sending a tweet saying he aimed to respond to a new trend where users were including screenshots of text with their tweets to get around the character limit. What if an image of text "was actually text?" he wrote at the time.
The rumors of a change have excited many users who have clamored for a way to share their thoughts more expansively. Some users have taken matters into their own hands. In addition to the image-based workaround, various people on Twitter post "tweet storms," number-ordered tweets sent in succession to spell out an argument or opinion.

 Dorsey ruminated on the possibility of adding text search and highlighting features for longer messages. “We’re not going to be shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people,” he wrote at the time. “As long as it’s consistent with what people want to do, we’re going to explore it.”

Dorsey acknowledged that Twitter removed a video posted by Islamic terrorist group ISIS that personally threatened retaliation against him and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.  

“I found it alarming,” Dorsey told Lauer.

Twitter has wrestled with the problem of making the service easier to use and more useful, while preserving the features its core user base loves. In the fourth quarter of 2015, Twitter’s monthly active users declined by 3 million, to 305 million.