Facebook Lets You Edit Posts After Sharing On Android And Web Now, iOS Soon

Typo ruin your social media masterpiece? Facebook is starting to let you edit a post’s text after you publish it. The feature comes to the web and Android in an update today, and to iOS soon. Previously you had to delete your post, lose all your Likes and comments, and repost to edit something. Android users also get emotion and activity sharing, events at a glance, and photo album creation today.

To edit posts, you’ll be able to click the down arrow in the top right of one of your posts and select ‘Edit Post’ to change the text. Your revisions and original post will still be viewable if friends check your post’s edit history, though.

The long-requested Facebook feature was likely held back because the company was scared users would bait and switch each other. Imagine if a friend posted “Like this post if you hate Justin Bieber”, and you liked it, but then they edited it to say “Like if you LOVE Justin Bieber”. That could defame your music tastes.

But Facebook apparently found that the edit history section was enough to deter people from such trickery. It started allowing users to edit comments in June 2012 and seems to have encountered few problems.

The feature could be a big help on mobile where touchscreen keypads make it easy to screw up. It’s always a shame to have to wash away the comments you got immediately just to make an “its” an “it’s”.