Images and other media no longer count towards Twitter's 140-character limit

Twitter is changing how its 140-character tweets work, as adding images and other media will no longer count towards the character limit.

The social media site announced the plans to "simplify tweets" earlier this year, after founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey had previously admitted the platform was too confusing for consumers.

Twitter has struggled to attract new subscribers to the service, which has around 313 million active monthly users, compared with fellow social network Facebook, which has more than 1.7 billion.

In a tweet announcing the change, Twitter said users would be able to "say more about what's happening".

Twitter confirmed that when users add photos, gifs, videos or polls, or quote other tweets, it will no longer count towards the 140 characters. Twitter has already removed the limit from the private Direct Messages service.

The social media site also said that when users reply to tweets, the user name of the person they are replying to - which is required in the tweet - will no longer count towards the limit.