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MICROSPLAINER

We explain—in 280 characters—why Chinese-speaking Twitter users only get 140

The Twitter logo is shown at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, California October 4, 2013. Twitter Inc, racing toward the largest Silicon Valley IPO since Facebook Inc's 2012 coming-out party, hopes to woo investors with rip-roaring revenue growth despite having posted big losses over the past three years. The eight-year-old online messaging service gave potential investors their first glance at its financials on Thursday when it publicly filed its IPO documents, setting the stage for one of the most-anticipated debuts in over a year.
Reuters/Robert Galbraith
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  • Nikhil Sonnad
By Nikhil Sonnad

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This article is more than 2 years old.

You might be wondering why some Asian languages are still limited to 140 characters, while Twitter is expanding the upper limit to 280 for English and others. Here is our explainer, in 280 characters:

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