Elon Musk had long claimed that the company would seek to make the platform more appealing to video makers before he took control of Twitter. Today, Twitter made the announcement on the Twitter Blue page that subscribers can now upload 60-minute videos from the web at a resolution of 1080p and 2GB in size.
Prior to the change, Twitter Blue subscribers were able to upload 10-minute videos on the platform at 1080p resolution with a file size limit of 512MB. Sadly, if you’re uploading from iOS or Android, this limit is still applicable.
Twitter said that it will consider modifying the quality of the video for distribution.
“We strive to maintain the highest possible video quality for all videos uploaded to our platform. However, we may modify or adapt your original video for distribution, syndication, publication, or broadcast by us and our partners and/or make changes in order to adapt it to different media, including modifying the resolution and bitrate of the original video while streaming based on the speed and stability of the viewer’s internet connection,” the company said on a support page.
The ability to submit longer videos will make it harder for Twitter to combat piracy. Users may upload entire TV episodes or movies, so the social network’s moderators and automated algorithms will need to be vigilant about promptly taking them down. When Twitter’s copyright systems temporarily ceased functioning last month, users uploaded entire movies in smaller pieces. It is now simpler for offenders to share someone else’s work thanks to the increased 60-minute video limit.
There are also questions about monetization from these videos. YouTube shows multiple ads in longer videos, but it’s not clear at the moment if Twitter is planning to do something similar.
Subscribers will now receive priority in replies in addition to the increased video upload cap. Users will “notice a modest preference for replies from Blue verified accounts over other replies,” the business claimed. As a result, paying accounts’ responses will appear before those from other accounts. Twitter didn’t really go into depth on how it would manage people who pay to spam or harass other users in exchange for preferential treatment in replies.
