Do you know what the limits are for the maximum Facebook characters are? It’s a huge number, especially when compared to Twitter, and the reason is really a rather nerdy one.
Limits. Ugh. We all hate them, and always want to exceed them. Sometimes though there are barriers that prevent us from going past the limits. Now I’m not one to say never, or it can’t be done. The moment someone says that it can’t be done I usually say “no, i shouldn’t be done or it’s just difficult to do.” That’s the dilemma faced by many social media users, especially for users of the two biggest networks, Facebook and Twitter. Twitter users especially face a cruel limit on the number of characters that they can use. Facebook users on the other hand have a far more generous entitlement. In fact, the maximum Facebook characters that can be used in a post is a humungous 63,206. But why such a large number? Is it to entice George R R Martin to perhaps publish a future book from his epic tale, A Song of Ice and Fire? Unfortunately not. If you have nerds working for a company and in charge of decisions like this, the chances are that you will get a nerdy reason.
The technical reason for the maximum Facebook character limit
Why is the maximum Facebook characters for a status set at such a high, and seemingly random number? I mean, 63,206 isn’t exactly a round number. Why not 63,000, or even 63,200? Well, as we said before, the reason is about as nerdy as they come. Here is the nerdy explanation. Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin tells it like this, “I set the exact limit to something nerdy (his words, not ours). Facebook … Face Boo K … hex(FACE) – K … 64206 – 1000 = 63206 :-).”
Now you know why the maximum Facebook character status limit is such an unusual number.
