Twitter, historically known for its 140-character limit, has been both praised and criticized for encouraging succinct messaging. While brevity has its benefits, it can also hamper robust conversation and effective content sharing. In response to this, Twitter developed a feature known as “retweet with comment”, a potential solution to this dilemma.
Previously, Twitter offered the “quote tweet” feature, allowing users to include another’s tweet in their own and commentate on it. But this necessitated shortening the original tweet to fit the user’s input within the character limit. This new “retweet with comment” functionality may supersede the old one, paving the way for more efficient user engagement, contextual inclusion, and commentary.
So, what differentiates retweets and quote tweets? With a retweet, a user can repost a person’s tweet on their timeline. A quote tweet embeds another user’s tweet within the new one, with quotation marks, providing room for the user to add their own commentary before or after the quoted section.
However, each comes with limitations due to Twitter’s stringent 140-character restriction, which can restrict sharing more extensive views. The “retweet with comment” feature seeks to rectify this issue. The feature allows users to comment at length, with the quoted tweet displayed as a compact ‘Twitter Card’ below their commentary.
Twitter is currently beta testing this potential feature with a specific user group to assess user feedback. Meanwhile, many users have noted the disappearance of the quote tweet option, replaced by this new one. Public response to this modification has varied, with some users expressing discontent over the change, while others believe it’s a significant improvement on the previous system, offering expanded space for personal comments.
Twitter’s 140-character policy, while unique, has received criticism for limiting user interaction. The platform’s hesitance to extend this limit has been a point of contention. The new “retweet with comment” feature could be a step forward in preserving Twitter’s uniqueness while accommodating users’ demand for more comprehensive dialogues.
Twitter has not officially commented on this upcoming feature or disclosed any implementation plans.
Light edits were made in 2025 to improve clarity and relevance.
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