Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reveals microblogging site will stick to 140-character limit for tweets

Twitter users unhappy about the company's speculated move to increase the existing character limit for tweets can breathe a sigh of relief. Ahead of the company's 10th anniversary, the micro-blogging site's CEO Jack Dorsey said Twitter would be very much sticking to the 140-character limit and not abandon one of its trademark features for a 10,000-character limit.

"It's staying. It's a good constraint for us and it allows for of-the-moment brevity," Dorsey said on NBC's Today Show. The company has, however, not released any statement on the issue.

Since January 2016, reports have cropped up on how the company was planning to tweak its rules for character limits on tweets, which angered many Twitter users and "Twitter celebrities", who have by now mastered the art of grabbing attention under 140 characters. Users complained that having an unlimited or even 10,000 word limit would make the platform just like Facebook and lose its signature feature.

Soon after that in February, the company started dealing with the backlash for changing their timeline algorithm to show "best" tweets first. In fact, since Dorsey returned to Twitter in October 2015, he has been instrumental in some of these core changes, including adding the "Moments", feature that allows users to easily find tweets about the day's biggest news stories and changing the shape of its "favourite" icon from a star to a heart.

The latest comment by the CEO indicates towards a strategy of retaining more users on the platform and getting new ones. The company is also facing a severe financial crunch as a recent report indicated the company had lost over $2bn (£1.4bn) since the social network was first launched 10 years ago, with $1.6bn of the deficit happening since it went public two years ago.

Despite the financial turmoil, Dorsey remained positive and predicted the company will continue to be an influencing force for decades to come.

"We'll be here on the 20th (anniversary). We'll be here on the 30th. It's a fundamental service, and we have a lot of heart in the company, we have a lot of purpose," he said. "We understand what we are and what we stand for. We just see this amazing usage globally."