And you thought 280-character tweets were bad. Over the weekend, two German men (who presumably were unfamiliar with the saying that brevity is the soul of wit) figured how to trick Twitter into letting them post a 35,000 character tweet. Twitter has since deleted the post, although it lives forever on the Internet Archive, where you can view it here.
The tweet starts off by saying (at least, according to Google translate) “People! @Timrasett and @HackneyYT can exceed the character limit! You do not believe us? Here’s about 35k characters proof.” Following that is an incomprehensible string of characters that goes on and on and on and on.
So, what’s the secret sauce? As pointed out by one Twitter user, the main body of the post is actually a URL (in case you’re curious, click the link above and CTRL-F for “.cc”).
If you're wondering how twitter[.]com/Timrasett/status/926903967027785728 works:
[27024-char domain name].cc/[3244-char directory name] pic.twitter.com/vG26Jvz27F
— waxwing:(){ :|: &};: (@hexwaxwing) November 4, 2017
Unfortunately, the fun didn’t last long. Twitter sat both Tim Rasett and HackneyYT on the naughty step, handing them both temporary bans. Fortunately, these have since lifted.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
Goodnight sweet prince pic.twitter.com/cB0La8bZKQ
— CubeBag (@cubebag) November 4, 2017
This, presumably, is because Twitter doesn’t like looking silly, and the fact that the extra-long tweet was causing all sorts of issues for users.
Amusingly, last year, Recode reported that Twitter was contemplating letting users post tweets of up to 10,000 characters in length, which is the same character limit afforded to direct messages. Perhaps Tim Rasett and HackneyYT weren’t even that far off the mark.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.