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> Twitter redirects links through its t.co link-shortening service. It was once a useful addition to its service as it helped people stay underneath the strict

> Twitter redirects links through its t.co link-shortening service. It was once a useful addition to its service as it helped people stay underneath the strict character limits. The link shortener reduced all links to 23 characters. Twitter gains some more data-insights about its users in the form of click-stream data and insight into popular links. The t.co link also helps them block URLs that they deem problematic on their platform - in the event of spam, attack, or abuse, the redirect can instead be a black hole.

encom 6y ago
They don't need `t.co` to censor messages. `t.co` was never anything but click tracking, since the character limit is completely arbitrary.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- majewsky 6y ago
  It wasn't arbitrary. Twitter started out with an SMS interface, and kept it for several years. SMS are 160 characters max [1], and some characters are needed for the protocol, so the payload was limited to 140 chars. [1] Note: Modern SMS apps support a protocol that sends larger messages as a stream of multiple interlinked SMS. This is transparent to the user, but at the time of Twitter's SMS interface this was not common.
  - TonyTrapp 6y ago
    Are you sure about that note? I have one phone that is some years older than Twitter and it supports long SMS transparently.
    - majewsky 6y ago
      I didn't say "was not available at the time", I said "was not common at the time".