In November 2017, Twitter doubled the maximum allowed tweet length from 140 to 280 characters, a drastic switch on one of the world's most influential social media platforms. In the first long-term study of how the new length limit was adopted by Twitter users, we ask: Does the effect of the new length limit resemble that of the old one? Or did the doubling of the limit fundamentally change how Twitter is shaped by the limited length of posted content? By analyzing Twitter's publicly available 1% sample over a period of around 3 years, we find that, when the length limit was raised from 140 to 280 characters, the prevalence of tweets around 140 characters dropped immediately, while the prevalence of tweets around 280 characters rose steadily for about 6 months. Despite this rise, tweets approaching the length limit have been far less frequent after than before the switch. We find widely different adoption rates across languages and client-device types. The prevalence of tweets around 140 characters before the switch in a given language is strongly correlated with the prevalence of tweets around 280 characters after the switch in the same language, and very long tweets are vastly more popular on Web clients than on mobile clients. Moreover, tweets of around 280 characters after the switch are syntactically and semantically similar to tweets of around 140 characters before the switch, manifesting patterns of message squeezing in both cases. Taken together, these findings suggest that the new 280-character limit constitutes a new, less intrusive version of the old 140-character limit. The length limit remains an important factor that should be considered in all studies using Twitter data.

中文翻译：

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采用 Twitter 的新长度限制：280 是新的 140 吗？

2017 年 11 月，Twitter 将允许的最大推文长度翻了一番，从 140 个字符增加到 280 个字符，这是世界上最具影响力的社交媒体平台之一的重大转变。在关于 Twitter 用户如何采用新长度限制的第一个长期研究中，我们问：新长度限制的效果是否与旧的类似？或者限制的加倍是否从根本上改变了 Twitter 是如何被发布内容的有限长度所塑造的？通过分析 Twitter 公开可用的 1% 样本在大约 3 年的时间里，我们发现，当长度限制从 140 个字符提高到 280 个字符时，140 个字符左右的推文流行度立即下降，而 280 个字符左右的推文流行度稳定上涨约 6 个月。尽管有这种上涨，接近长度限制的推文在切换后的频率远低于切换前。我们发现不同语言和客户端设备类型的采用率差异很大。切换前 140 个字符左右的推文流行度与切换后相同语言 280 个字符左右的推文流行率密切相关，而且很长的推文在 Web 客户端上比在移动客户端上更受欢迎。此外，转换后大约 280 个字符的推文在句法和语义上与转换前大约 140 个字符的推文相似，在这两种情况下都体现了消息挤压的模式。综上所述，这些发现表明新的 280 个字符限制构成了旧的 140 个字符限制的新的、侵入性较小的版本。