This Wednesday, April 26, 2017, photo shows the Twitter app on a mobile phone in Philadelphia. Twitter says it is rolling out a 280-character limit to nearly everyone, ending the iconic 140-character restriction. Users tweeting in Chinese, Japanese and Korean will still have the original limit. That's because writing in those languages uses fewer characters. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) German bureaucrats—notorious for their ability to create lengthy tongue twisters consisting of one single word—are celebrating the doubling of Twitter's character limit.
Twitter announced Tuesday it's increasing the limit for almost all users of the messaging service from 140 to 280 characters, prompting a mix of delighted and despairing reactions.
Waking up to the news Wednesday, Germany's justice ministry wrote that it can now tweet about legislation concerning the transfer of oversight responsibilities for beef labeling.
The law is known in German as the Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz.
Munich police, meanwhile, said that "at last" they won't need abbreviations to tweet about accidents involving forklift drivers, or Niederflurfoerderfahrzeugfuehrer.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert made clear he'll keep it short, quoting Anton Chekhov: "Brevity is the sister of talent."
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