Twitter users will soon be less restricted in how long they can make their posts, as the social media giant announced Tuesday that it will make its 140-character limit much more flexible.
The goal is to make it easier for users to communicate with each other, as the current character limit has made it difficult for people who need more content to express themselves in their posts.
The changes are expected to be implemented in the coming months, though a specific date has yet to be provided.
Twitter did, however, say that it will relax its character limit by not counting tags at the beginning of replies, as well as photos, GIFs and videos. In addition to giving users the chance to write longer messages, their posts can now be more interactive.
"This is something that has been requested from people using Twitter for quite some time," Jack Dorsey, chief executive of Twitter, said in an interview, adding that when people try to put everything that they want to say into a 140-character tweet, "then you're just thinking a lot about Twitter instead of what you're saying. We shouldn't make you think about Twitter."
Another change that is coming to the site is the ability for users to retweet and post their own tweets. However, other mentions of a user name within a tweet will still count.
"We'll be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed," Senior Product Manager Todd Sherman wrote in a blog post.
The San Francisco-based company has made only a few changes to its service over the years, such as adding a direct-messages button on the mobile home screen and replacing the site's "favorite" button with a heart-shaped "like" button.
However, Twitter fans haven't been big fans of major changes to the service, as users expressed their disagreements back in January when reports claimed that the company was considering enacting a project called "beyond 140," in which it would increase the character limit for tweets. Dorsey assured users in March that these changes were not taking place.
Twitter's new move allows it to keep the 140-character limit and let users post longer tweets at the same time.
