Afraid of tweeting out something you might regret? Twitter is experimenting with possible a solution: In Brazil, the company is starting to offer disappearing tweets, which will expire from public view in 24 hours.
“People often tell us that they don’t feel comfortable Tweeting because Tweets can be seen and replied to by anybody, feel permanent and performative,” announced Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour on Wednesday.
Enter “Fleets,” an experimental feature designed to get you to share your “fleeting thoughts” on the social media platform. However, these expiring fleets won’t show up on your main timeline like a normal tweet does. Users will actually have to seek out your fleets by tapping on your profile pic.
If this sounds a lot like the “Stories” feature on Instagram, well, you wouldn’t be wrong. As part of the test, Twitter plans on adding a new bar across your home page, which will let you easily access all the fleets people you follow have been posting.
“Yes, there are many similarities with the Stories format that will feel familiar to people,” Beykpour said. “(But) there are also a few intentional differences to make the experience more focused on sharing and seeing people’s thoughts.”
According to Twitter’s blog post on the feature, the company wants to make fleets primarily text-based, although you can include videos, GIFs and photos. The other big difference with fleets is how other users won’t be able to retweet, like or reply to them. “People can only react to your Fleets with DMs,” Beykpour added.
For now, the experimental feature will only be available on the iOS and Android apps for Twitter in Brazil. If the test goes well, the company will consider bringing fleets to other markets.
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