We’ve all been there: You think you have the perfect quip on some viral topic, or a withering comeback to a troll, but then you realize way too late that there’s a typo. That’s when you scream to the heavens, “Where’s my edit button?!” Apparently, the people behind social media app Threads finally heard you, because the platform is adding an edit function.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new feature on his Threads page, writing, “Rolling out Edit and Voice Threads today. Enjoy!” According to TechCrunch, “you can edit your post as many times as you want within five minutes of posting.” The best news of all is unlike X (f.k.a. Twitter), which only allows subscribers access to its edit button, Threads will let anyone edit. Another major difference between the two sites is that Threads won’t show the edit history of a post, something X does do.
While a free edit button is a smart way to compete with X, not showing the edit history does raise a lot of questions. What happens when I like a fairly innocuous post, only to have it changed to something offensive or hateful two minutes later? Without a screenshot no one can see what I was originally agreeing with. Does Zuckerberg expect me to screenshot every single post I like or reply to? Sorry, but I don’t have that kind of time.
For Black users, a lack of edit history can open them up to having their opinions misinterpreted or making it look like they’ve co-signed a comment they definitely don’t believe in. It feels like Threads is so desperate to have their feature be different from X’s, they didn’t stop to think about how this function could be misused.
The other major change Zuckerberg announced today was Voice Threads, which will let someone use their voice to post instead of typing. When you start a post or reply, use the microphone icon to start talking, then edit the caption of your message.
Threads was just launched in July and is already making new features available to its users. I just hope the intense rivalry between Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk leads to better services for customers and not just some weird billionaire vanity contest.