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Many Twitter users feel constrained by the company’s somewhat archaic 140-character limit.
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Time to ditch Twitter’s limit of 140 characters?

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Time to ditch Twitter’s limit of 140 characters?

NEW YORK — Many Twitter users — and more importantly, the billions more who don’t use Twitter — feel constrained by the company’s somewhat archaic 140-character limit.

Is it time to ditch it as Twitter searches for ways to grow its stagnant user base?

The limit was created so tweets would fit in a single text message, back when people used Twitter that way. But most people now use Twitter through its mobile app, where there isn’t the same technical constraint.

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And Twitter users already employ creative ways to get around it. They send out multipart tweets, or take screenshots of text typed elsewhere.

Chief Executive Jack Dorsey, in such a screenshot that he tweeted in January, appeared amused by the fact that people are finding creative workarounds.

“[What] if that text ... was actually text?” he mused. “Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That’s more utility and power.”

This suggests that the company is at least thinking about creative ways to keep the spirit of the 140-character limit while giving people more freedom to share their thoughts and rants. Mr. Dorsey this year insisted to Today show host Matt Lauer that the 140-character limit was here to stay, even as Twitter itself evolves.

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But a news report this week said the company was planning to stop counting Web links and photos in the 140 characters, a move that would further erode that limit. Twitter declined to comment.

Gartner analyst Brian Blau called the idea “a good compromise.” Twitter already shortens long links to give users more room to write. This might be a logical next step.

Easing the character limit, though, might not be enough to reverse Twitter’s stagnation. The San Francisco company has long lagged behind Facebook as a place for everyone..

Twitter currently has 310 million users, which is less even than the professional networking service LinkedIn. Facebook has 1.65 billion users.

First Published May 18, 2016, 4:00 a.m.

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Many Twitter users feel constrained by the company’s somewhat archaic 140-character limit.  (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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