Twitter CEO Dick Costolo (Photo: 36kr)

In a move that shocked the nation, Twitter announced on Thursday that it will be expanding the amount of characters Twitter's t.co link wrapper will take, from 20 to 22. Beginning in February, any user that tweets a link will lose two of the precious characters it takes to preface that link with a pithy knock-off joke.

Twitter users were whipped into a frenzy by the news, expressing their anger and bewilderment through 140 character snippets. "This is an outrage," tweeted Stefan J. Becket of New York Magazine.

"GASP," wrote Vox Media's Callie Schweitzer, before appending the hashtag "#LETSREVOLT."

Twitter broke the news on its developer blog, but failed to explain its motives for the vicious assault on link sharing. "Who knows?" mused The Next Web. Our guess? Twitter no longer gives a f*ck.

The changes go into effect on February 6, 2012, by which point everyone will have already forgotten about this whole thing.