• by Colin Kirkland , October 12, 2023

According to a post by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company's social messaging platform Threads is going after its competitor X with a highly valued copycat feature: the edit button.

Threads’ new edit button is designed to help users easily correct any mistake they typed in a thread post without having to repost the entire message. It sounds simple and straightforward, but it took X (formerly Twitter) 16 years to add an edit button to its platform, even as it became users’ most desired feature.

While X users have up to an hour to edit their tweets, users on Threads will have five minutes after posting to edit the post. However, whereas X placed its edit button behind a subscriber paywall, making it accessible only to paying X Premium users, Meta is making its edit button free to all users on mobile and the web.

As Threads’ active user count continues to dwindle since its explosive launch in July, Meta is trying to lure users to the platform -- and away from X -- with a host of new features.

Just last week, Threads’ Trends feature leaked to the public and it looks exactly like Twitter’s long-standing home-page list of topics and hashtags being engaged with most on the platform at any given time.

Other recent Threads features include a mobile and web app, an in-app search function available to people in most English and Spanish-speaking countries, and a chronological feed.

In addition to its new edit button, Threads also announced the option to post voice clips on the app, allowing users to speak instead of type when sharing their thoughts.