Twitter to expand tweets' character limit, could increase it to 10,000

The project, reportedly known as ‘Beyond 140’ within the company, could launch within the coming months

Twitter interim CEO Jack Dorsey has apparently been unafraid to leave his mark on the company (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

Twitter could be about to expand the character limit for tweets to 10,000, according to reports.

The company is planning to drop the 140-character limit and could increase it to thousands, Re/Code reports. The new plan, being developed by a team known as ‘Beyond 140’, could be released within the first quarter of 2016, it has been reported.

The current version of the expanded tweets shows them as the normal 140, but gives people the option to click the full thing, according to reports. That would keep the same look and feel of a normal timeline — while allowing them to function in the same way that pictures do now.

Users have previously reacted badly to making tweets bigger or to extending them with pictures, according to Re/Code. That means that the site is attempting to design the new feature in such a way as to still present a large number of tweets, but without the limits.

The company is still working on the project and it doesn’t have a set release date, according to the report. But the feature could be revealed within the first quarter of 2016.

The company is continuing to design the feature to ensure that it can’t be used for spamming — by tagging a huge number of people in one single tweet to ensure that it is seen, for instance. It will also have to redesign the tools it uses to keep track of the reactions to tweets.

The change is thought to be one of those being headed by relatively new CEO Jack Dorsey. The company has had trouble bringing new users to the service in recent months, and it has been introducing a huge range of new features in an attempt to expand its offering.