Twitter Rolls Out Disappearing Tweets Called ‘Fleets’ for Everyone
Earlier this week, the popular social media platform Twitter made an announcement regarding the launch of its new temporary tweeting feature called “Fleets” worldwide. The company had announced this feature earlier this year, and after testing it across different regions, Fleets is now all set to be available for all users around the globe.
From now onwards, every user using Twitter’s android or IOS app will be able to utilize the Fleets feature no matter in which part of the world they are in. Users will be able to find and access this new feature from the top of their timeline. The fleets from people you follow will be displayed in a row with the particular user’s profile picture encircled by a blue ring, just like in Stories.
The company expects to take the pressure off that surrounds tweeting by allowing the users to share more casual opinions and emotions without worrying too much about expressing something profound or bagging likes and retweets. The company has begun rolling out this disappearing tweeting feature for Android and IOS mobile Twitter app users, and it should be soon available for all users in the next couple of days.
Twitter tested this feature in various parts of the world, including India, Brazil, South Korea, and Italy, and discovered that Fleets did encourage the users to participate in conversations more comfortably across the platform. Users who were using Fleets in these regions engaged more in conversations than the users who didn’t.
Moreover, users who are new to the Twitter world found it better and easier to express what’s on their minds via Fleets. Since these Fleets disappear after 24 hours, users felt more at ease sharing their personal and random thoughts, views, and feelings.
At its essence, Twitter’s Fleets is a clone of Stories, adopting all the best ideas executed by popular social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram. You can add photos, videos, GIFs, links, or text to your fleets. You can also share tweets from other users on your Fleets while adding your personal thoughts or comments about it there comfortably. You have all the editing options that you can find on other social media platforms with temporary features like stories that disappear after a day.
Moreover, the platform also lets you reply to Fleets from other users by either tapping on “Send a Message” or emoji options. This helps in initiating conversations in the DMs, just like how the Stories feature works on other platforms. If you have open DMs, everyone can respond to your Fleets; if not, only users you follow will be able to reply. You can delete your Fleet by simply tapping on your Fleet and clicking “Delete Fleet.” The platform is also planning to roll out stickers and live streaming features sooner or later. Users can’t like or retweet a Fleet.
As of now, there is no option to find out if someone has taken a screenshot of any of your Fleets, unlike in Snapchat, where the user gets notified. There are two ways users can view your Fleets: first, by tapping on your profile’s blue bubble appearing on their timeline and second by visiting your profile and tapping on your profile picture. You can’t exclude any followers from seeing your Fleet currently. However, if your Tweets are protected, your Fleets too will be protected. You can check who has viewed your Fleet by clicking on your Fleet and tapping on the “Seen by” option.
Considering all these, it won’t really be appropriate to regard Fleets as a cure-all magic bullet to the social media outrage culture or the tendency of this platform to aim individual actions in bulk towards a single person – which we informally say ‘getting ratioed’ or Twitter pile-ons or cancel culture or literally whatever you’d like to name it to so that it sounds a bit more polite than becoming a social media punching bag does. Because even though Fleets will vanish after 24 hours, anyone can save it for the future, repost it as their Tweet, and tag you with a nice, brief, and mean message. Likewise, if you post something stupid, what exactly is stopping other people from reposting it and criticizing you via the conventional tweet channel – screenshots.
However, after analyzing everything it can offer, Fleets seem to be most helpful in splitting up the massive volume of opinions that get peddled in the form of Tweets across the platform every single minute on a daily basis into more easy-to-digest formats. This may trigger a significant shift in the way users communicate on Twitter. Well, some users are sure to test the boundaries of what can be shared, expressed, or displayed via a Fleet vs. a Tweet. So, Twitter is certainly going to face some severe restraint challenges initially when determining whether they should introduce new norms or just alter the existing ones to tackle things such as spreading false information or harassment as it crops up in Fleets.
However, the majority of us Twitter users can simply (and well decently) use Fleets to share our casual thoughts or hot takes or literally anything that crosses our mind and let it vanish in the void like most stupid opinions do – just the same way Instagram and Snapchat Stories allow users to share their unedited and momentary snippets from their day-to-day lives that don’t need to be adorned with filters and acquire a special place in our feed.
Well, that is the case only if we presume that the Twitterati is actually interested in using this feature appropriately. Ever since Snapchat dropped the great Stories feature in the market, more than half a decade ago, social media platforms haven’t rested, and even apps that didn’t really need temporary features got it anyway – from Facebook app to YouTube and now even LinkedIn! However, even though these Stories clones might stick around for a while, they all eventually become deserted towns. For example, Facebook users hardly use its stories feature now.
Conclusion
To wrap up, it isn’t entirely clear that Twitter needs to have a “Stories” take of its own. But if having temporary features can reduce the stakes and encourage a healthier and non-toxic environment while promoting stress-free communication, then why not? It is much needed for people to chill out a bit and give a rest to social media outrage, and maybe Fleets is just one way to do that, making the web a bit more tolerable. So go on and log in to your Twitter and try out this new feature. Let’s see how this works out.