Twitter has recently doubled the character limit for a tweet to 280 characters for a small group during a special research testing period. 

With this new character amount, Twitter users are allowed to type longer, more detailed messages than before.

According to the Time website, this change has been considered for quite some time now. 

One major reason behind why Twitter has decided to possibly make this change, is due to the fact that that in other languages it takes up more characters to express a message than it does in English, and Twitter wants to be fair and loyal to people everywhere that speak various languages. (DID TWITTER SAY THIS? ATTRIBUTE)

There is no telling if the character limit will be changed permanently or if they will retreat to the 140 character limit. 

(ADD LOCAL PEOPLE WITH LONGER LIMITS/FUNNY TWEETS ABOUT IT?)