Reverse-coder Jane Manchun Wong has done it again – this time unearthing a new option for sent Tweets currently being tested by Twitter. The update would prompt users with an “undo” button, appearing for five seconds after a Tweet is posted. The change could be beneficial for, say, catching spelling errors before a Tweet goes public – or maybe simply giving users an extra moment to ponder their message before sharing with the world.

The final version will likely be formatted differently than this preview, as Twitter users have noted.

Will Twitter ever get a real editing option?

The move has been called a “compromise” effort in response to the longstanding requests for an editing option on Twitter. In an era when the unearthing of decades-old Tweets can be a career-destroying ritual, the desire for such an option is understandable. But this 5-second time window is hardly going to solve that problem.

Speaking about a full-scale editing option, Jack Dorsey has previously stated:

“The reason we don’t have edit in the first place is we were built on SMS, we were built on text messaging. Once you send a text, you can’t take it back. So when you send a tweet it goes to the world instantaneously. You can’t take it back. You could build it as such so maybe we introduce a 5-second to 30-second delay in the sending. And within that window, you can edit. The issue with going longer than that is it takes that real-time nature of the conversational flow out of it.”

Sorry, pro-edit advocates, but it looks like this 5-second window is about as good as it’s going to get.