Report: Twitter Will No Longer Count Links, Photos Against 140-Character Limit

Image courtesy of Tom Raftery

While Twitter isn’t ready to expand its 140-character limit anytime soon, the social media may be willing to exempt photos and URLs from that per-Tweet allotment.

Bloomberg cites a person familiar with the matter who says the change could happen in the next two weeks. As it stands now, links require 23 characters — even after Twitter shortens them automatically.

The 140-character limit was first used by Twitter because that was the limit for a single mobile text message. Tweeting by text was popular back in the pre-smartphone era of 2006, when the social media company first launched.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently said the 140-character limit will live on because it’s “too iconic” to get rid of.

“It’s staying. It’s a good constraint for us,” he said in March. “It allows for of-the-moment brevity.”

Twitter declined to comment on Bloomberg’s story.

Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit [Bloomberg]

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