Threads, Meta’s text-based social media platform and X rival, is launching a new feature called “disappearing posts” meaning posts that disappear after 24 hours, much like Whatsapp status, Snapchat or Instagram Stories, that will let its 400 million+ monthly users express their opinions and have discussions that are automatically saved after a day.
The goal, according to the firm who had wrote on a blog post about this update is to encourage users to “share unfiltered thoughts and fresh takes without the pressure of permanence or polish.” Last month, Adam Mosseri, the leader of Meta-owned Instagram, disclosed that Stories has emerged as one of the most popular methods for users to interact.
The feature, known to be “ghost posts,” will be available to all Threads users starting on Monday.
According to Lia Haberman who has said through a LinkedIn post she share on Monday that “the platform has really done THE most to introduce text-based updates, including today’s latest release, “ghost posts.””
She also said that the Ghost posts are a new feature for sharing unfiltered, in-the-moment thoughts that are archived after 24 hours.
Lia also stated that at the press release:
That Ghost posts appear subtly grayed out.
That Replies to ghost posts are sent directly to your messaging inbox, and only you can see who liked or replied to your post.
That to create a ghost post, start composing a post and toggle on the ghost icon
On mobile devices, users can now make ghost posts by turning on the new “ghost” icon on the compose screen of the app. To set it apart from other content, the post is surrounded by a dotted chat bubble when it is published in other people’s timelines.
Although other users on desktop and mobile devices can comment to the post, these messages are delivered straight to the poster’s direct messages (DMs) and are not displayed in the timeline.
Smiley-faced icons underneath the post show whether or not comments have been left on the ghost post. The precise amount of likes, comments, and participants, however, are only visible to posters.
Posts are removed from the timeline after 24 hours, however the original poster can still view them in the “archived” section, which can be accessible via the main settings menu.
(Note: Users you don’t follow will not be able to respond to your ghost posts if you have disabled message requests. If you have enabled message requests, any responses from non-followers will be sent to your message request inbox. These settings can be changed using the drop-down menu located in the upper right corner of your profile.
The parent firm, Meta, said a news agency that the purpose of the feature was to promote more low-stakes sharing in the feed.
With this update, Threads may have a new avenue to compete with Elon Musk’s X, where users must now use third-party, frequently expensive services to remove their previous tweets if they don’t want to perform a lot of hard labour.
Ephemeral posts have been used by text-first social networks before. Prior to X, Twitter tried this sharing method in 2020 with Fleets, which showed up as Stories that vanished. The feature was discontinued by the corporation the next year, nevertheless, due to little uptake.
On the other hand, Meta thinks that content disappearance still has potential; this strategy has been successful for Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories, for example. The company claims that it anticipates that users will be inspired to upload more of their raw ideas, participate in live threading, or experiment with different types of experimental material through ghost postings on Threads.
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