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Twitter users can now retweet, quote themselves to promote old tweets

| Jun 15, 2016 08:20 AM EDT

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Twitter now lets users of the social network retweet or quote themselves when old tweets did not get enough publicity the first time. In the past, the button was hidden or not available for people's own tweets and timeline. However, Twitter just announced that starting on June 15, Wednesday people can do a self-retweet when their Twitter followers do not.

After Twitter users click on the retweet button on their tweet, it now retweets like it does for other users. On the web version a window pops up over the timeline, which allows people to retweet or add comments to the original Twitter post, according to CNET.  

Meanwhile, a pop up appears on mobile apps. This allows users to select between a standard retweet and a quote.

The self-retweet is one of the updates that Twitter announced for the microblogging service last month. For example, now photo/video attachments, and Twitter usernames are not counted toward the 140-character limit. In addition, a period is also not required before the username to mention someone publically.     

However, the social giant has had problems during the past year getting people to sign up for its platform. Last month Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told the BBC that the company's goal is for tweets to make sense.

Dorsey shared that the company wants to make its product simpler. Other changes include any new tweet can now be seen by a person's followers.

This change gets rid of one of Twitter's most confusing systems. In the past posts starting with a username would only be seen by the person's followers if they were following the member stated at the beginning of the tweet. People were breaking the rule by adding a period before their tweets so they showed up as ".@username".

However, it is unclear if Twitter's changes will solve the company's main problems. Brian Blau of research firm Gartner argued that its plight is still adding new users and then making them loyal users, according to BBC.

Dorsey is a Twitter co-founder and former CEO of Twitter. He was fired in 2008 for reportedly leaving work every day at 6 p.m. for yoga classes and fashion school, and replaced by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. Dorsey returned as Twitter CEO in 2015. 

Here's a video on Twitter's change to its 140-character limit:

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