Twitter to exclude URLs, images from tweets’ 140 character limit

Popular social media micro-blogging platform Twitter may soon remove image and URL character counts from its 140-character tweets.

According to a post on Bloomberg, the publication spoke to someone “familiar with the matter,” who revealed the change could happen within the next two weeks.

At present, links take up 23 characters, even after URLs have been shortened. There is no word yet on how many URLs or images can be linked to a tweet, which, if handled incorrectly, could lead to an even greater influx of spam.

These exclusions will add to the range of changes Twitter has made this year. In February, the company introduced GIF search and video support in DMs, along with April’s implementation of a new tool for battling harassment on its own platform.

Even with Twitter’s reported stagnant user base in Q4 of 2015, the company showed revenue growth of US$70-million and a 48% year-on-year increase.