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Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 19:48:56 -0600
From: Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com>
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On 08/11/2013 11:54 PM, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Michael Torrie wrote:
>> I've always wondered if the 160 character limit or whatever it is is a
>> hard limit in their system, or if it's just a variable they could tweak
>> if they felt like it.
> 
> Isn't it for compatibility with SMS? Twitter could
> probably change it, but persuading all the cell phone
> networks to change at the same time might be rather
> difficult.

Yes I think you're correct about it being limited for SMS.

However I know of no phone or network that won't let you use longer
messages; multiple SMS packets are used and most phone paste them back
together.  So no there's nothing that anyone needs to change to use
longer messages if they so chose.  It's now just an arbitrary limit,
part of the twitter culture.