People Have *Thoughts* About Twitter’s New Fleet Feature
Fleet #Fleet
If you logged onto Twitter today and did a double-take, you weren’t the only one. Twitter is the latest social platform to introduce disappearing posts that just so happen to be accessed via small circles at the top of the app — and they’re called Fleets. Look familiar? It’s reminiscent (read: exactly like) Instagram’s Stories and Snapchat.
“Some of you tell us that Tweeting is uncomfortable because it feels so public, so permanent, and like there’s so much pressure to rack up Retweets and Likes,” design director Joshua Harris and product manager Sam Haveson wrote in a blog post.
Fleets disappear after 24 hours and unlike tweets, they don’t earn Likes or RTs and there’s no way to post a public reply. For now, they’re only available on Twitter’s mobile platform, so if the new development is triggering some sort of social media trauma, stick to Twitter on your desktop to live in a state of ignorant bliss.
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Twitter/ArianaGrande
Twitter/JLo
Twitter/KimKardashian
Of course, social-savvy celebs are already embracing the new feature (Kim Kardashian West, Miley Cyrus, and Demi Lovato were among the first to use it), but not everyone’s embracing Fleets. From the actual name of the feature to the fact that it seems silly to have ephemeral posts on one more social media platform, Twitter users weren’t shy about their thoughts.
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Some users are embracing Fleets, because sometimes it’s tough to resist things that are shiny and new.
Users also noticed that there were a few security issues with Fleets. Because users aren’t notified if their Fleets posts are retweeted, they could be harnessed for bullying and harassment.
However, Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley said that Fleets are subject to the same rules as tweets, including content getting flagged as manipulated media or misinformation about civic processes.