Do you remember when Twitter stopped limiting the number of usernames you could tag in a post and suddenly for a few days people started tagging dozens of users at once just to be annoying? Well, if people start duplicating this hack, it’ll make your timeline a hell of a lot worse than that. 
 
 Oh Why Please No Twitter thinks we aren’t expressing ourselves enough, which begs the question: Has it used its own… Read more Read 
 
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 On November 4th, Twitter user Timrasett sent out a tweet that was 35,000 characters long. Yes, while people are either clamoring to be included in the 280-character limit club or bemoaning Twitter’s choice to double the potential length of a tweet, it appears there’s a loophole that will allow you to ruin the flow of peoples’ timelines in a big way. 
 
 Timrasett worked with another user going by HackneyYT to break Twitter’s character limit with a message that begins “People! @Timrasett and @HackneyYT can exceed the character limit! You do not believe us? Here’s about 35k characters proof.” (Translated from German via Google.) After that, thousands of characters of seeming nonsense appear. At least part of the trick is that the nonsense is formatted as a URL. Partially through the long tweet, you’ll find the characters “.cc/tsyau...” and then it continues going with more randomness. 
 
 It’s not totally clear why this method got past Twitter’s automatic link shortening tools, but the tweet was treated just the same as if it were sending out a standard, reasonably-sized URL. Both users were briefly suspended and the tweet has been deleted. Thankfully, the Internet Archive picked it up—just in case the people from Guinness decide this might count as the longest tweet ever recorded. 
 
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 We’ve reached out to both users to see if they want to reveal their trick, but for the moment, they’re shooting down inquiries on their respective timelines. We’ve also contacted Twitter for comment on the loophole and to ask if they’ve made changes to stop it from happening again. The company has yet to reply. When we simply tried tweeting the same message, it now goes slightly over the character limit. Take out a few characters and hit tweet and it gives you this message, “Your Tweet was over 140 characters. You’ll have to be more clever.” 
 
 For all of you monsters out there who actually want the new 280 character limit, you now have an even more ambitious goal. 
 
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 Update: A spokesperson for Twitter confirmed that the company has made changes to prevent this from happening again, and responded to our request for comment with the following message: 
 
 To promote a stable and secure environment on Twitter, you may not do, or attempt to do, any of the following while accessing or using Twitter: Access, tamper with, or use non-public areas of Twitter, Twitter’s computer systems, or the technical delivery systems of Twitter’s providers (except as expressly permitted by the Twitter Bug Bounty program). Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of any system or network, or breach or circumvent any security or authentication measures (except as expressly permitted by the Twitter Bug Bounty program). Interfere with or disrupt the access of any user, host or network, including, without limitation, sending a virus, overloading, flooding, spamming, mail-bombing Twitter’s services, or by scripting the creation of content in such a manner as to interfere with or create an undue burden on Twitter 
 
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 [Internet Archive via The Next Web] ||||| Twitter is about to get more words -- a lot more. 
 
 The company announced on Tuesday it is doubling how many characters users can cram into a tweet. 
 
 Most tweets will now fit 280 characters, up from 140. The new limit will roll out to Twitter users in almost all 40 languages Twitter supports. 
 
 In late September, Twitter began a test of 280-character tweets with a small group of users. 
 
 Like many Twitter (TWTR) changes, some users complained about the move. 
 
 Interestingly, Twitter said that after the novelty of tweeting more characters wore off, most people in the test stopped tweeting the full length. 
 
 According to the company, only 5% of tweets sent from people in the 280-character test group were longer than 140 characters, and just 2% were over 190 characters. 
 
 Related: Following backlash, Twitter clarifies what violates its policies 
 
 The new character length won't apply to Japanese, Korean or Chinese-language tweets. Those languages can convey twice as much information in less space, so tweets will remain at 140 characters, Twitter said. 
 
 Of course, the change means America's highest-profile Twitter user, President Trump, will have more space. Twitter cofounder Biz Stone had said the prolific Twitter user was not in the test group. 
 
 The move modifies a fundamental aspect of Twitter. Aside from the test, the social network's character limit hasn't changed since the company launched in 2006. 
 
 The 140-character length wasn't a random choice: Twitter's founders wanted tweets to fit in a text message, which can only hold 160 characters. So Twitter chose 140 characters for the tweet, and 20 characters for the user name. 
 
 During the 280-character test, some users argued Twitter should focus less on the length of the tweets and more on the content. The platform continues to be rife with harassment and abuse, despite the company's efforts to better police it. 
 
 Twitter recently updated its rules to be more explicit in its definitions and policies towards harassment, threats, and adult content. 
 
 Everyone affected by the new length should have it by Tuesday evening. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| (Photo: Getty Images, Andrew Burton) 
 
 Twitter openly values one account above all others, but at least everyone else will soon be on the same glorious pedestal. Back in September, Twitter announced that a select number users would have their character limit raised from 140 characters to 280, and the lucky few who received Jack Dorsey’s blessing were quick to embrace their newfound godhood by posting unnecessarily wordy complaints and repeating the same jokes about adding a message board-style signature to every tweet in order to properly utilize their 280 characters. Meanwhile, the ones who still had 140 were pushed around and treated like garbage, forced to immediately scroll past every 280-character tweet because they’re stupid and too long while cursing their own inability to embrace verbosity. 
 
 Now, that’s all changing. Despite the fact that everyone seems to think the 280-character thing is stupid and pointless, Twitter has determined that the test run was successful enough to begin rolling out the change to everybody. Twitter posted a blog post explaining how the people with 280 characters got more “engagement,” more followers, and spent more time on Twitter, even though at least one of those is objectively bad, and it also has some data on how a lot of people who had the 280 characters only used them when they really needed to. 
 
 The new limit hasn’t hit everybody yet, but it should be available on all accounts—at least the ones using properly updated Twitter clients—shortly.
– The tweets are long now. CNN reports that, for the first time since launching in 2006, Twitter has expanded its character limit for most users. Beginning Tuesday evening, Twitter users will have 280 characters instead of the previous 140. "We want it to be easier and faster for everyone to express themselves," Twitter tweeted. The company tested a 280-character limit with small group of users in September and states those users spent more time on Twitter, gained more followers, and had more "engagement," according to the AV Club. (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean-speaking Twitter users will continue to be limited to 140 characters, and Quartz explains why in, obviously, 280 characters.) As is their wont, many Twitter users complained about the change Tuesday. Perhaps that's because, as the AV Club puts it, users in the test group "were quick to embrace their newfound godhood by posting unnecessarily wordy complaints and repeating the same jokes about adding a message board-style signature to every tweet." But Twitter says the change shouldn't be that noticeable in the long run. It says most test users stopped using all 280 characters once they got tired of the jokes. Only 5% of tweets from users in the test group were longer than 140 characters, and only 2% were over 190 characters, according to Twitter. Meanwhile, a few days before Twitter gave users an extra 140 characters, Gizmodo reports one intrepid user figured out a loophole for a 35,000-character tweet.