‘Threads’, an under Meta’s umbrella, has roughly 175 million users. More recently, TechCrunch shared that Threads is experimenting with a new feature for ‘temporary’ posts. This feature would only make posts to be visible for a maximum of 24 hours and then be hidden like in the case of Instagram Stories.
Threads Sets the Clock: Meta's New 24-Hour Post Feature Breaks New Ground
This innovation comes a few months after Threads unveiled a strategy of temporary posts when it launched the prototypes in June. It is best used by those clients who often tend to delete the content, or post items that are relevant for a limited period.
With this feature, Threads could be unique to the competitors such as X, Bluesky, and Mastodon. This decision would make it the first social media platform out of these to come up with such an option of posting with a given expiry time.
It is yet unclear when the company will roll out the 24-hour post feature. Also, it is unclear whether the users have a choice to provide a short span of time for the post to be deleted after being posted.
The posts feature could be helpful to the users as a temporary platform that will give a new perspective on their posts. It fits into the current spirit ofTemporary Content in social media.
This is a good move from Threads especially given Meta’s continuous push towards creating newness in its platforms. The feature fits into a larger trend of more differentiated and therefore more varied opportunities for content management.
Countdown to Disappearance: Sneak Peek at Threads’ New Post Feature
While there is no fixed release date for this new feature definitive yet unfortunately, users are kept guessing more about when they will be able to see it more actively being rolled out to the public. Still, it remains unclear if users will be given an ability to select a time period less than one day in which the messages will be deleted automatically.
Threads a few weeks ago was recently showcased by Alessandro Baluzzi, a developer and mentor. His demonstration contained a screenshot, which presents a timer the number on which shows how much longer the post will be published before it self-deletes.
Timer featured in the screenshot from Baluzzi’s post declines gradually, so users can see how long they have before the post is deleted. In this feature the main idea is to give the users more control over visibility of the given posts.
In this feature, every time the users click the reply button to reply to a post containing such feature, the users are able to know the time that is left before the post is deleted. It also improves the visibility and users are able to give an account of the lifecycle of their content easily.
There are other features such as the disappearing post feature that has introduced curiosity among the users. The countdown timer is one of the features whose details about its complete implementation are not very clear but is central to its working.
Because its release has not been confirmed, fans are the waiting for more news on the feature. At the same time, evaluation of the demo by Baluzzi offers some preview of the future functionality of the feature and of what users can anticipate when they gain access to the feature.
Threads' 24-Hour Vanishing Act: What You Need to Know About Temporary Posts and Federated Networks
The new policy announced on Threads is the ability to delete post and replies on their own, which is on a 24 hour timer. This notice does not clearly describe what happens to quoted replies but it is suggested that quoted replies will be deleted after 24 hours had passed.
It has been found out that all quoted posts will also be erased after the set time as does the original post. This could mean that quoted replies, and any conversation containing them may vanish from the users profile after a day.
Messina highlighted an important detail: Such posts shall not be propagated in the federated network, hence the disappearing post issue will not exist. This means that when users port their accounts to Mastodon or other federated platforms their ephemeral posts will not be ported along with them.
These temporary posts shall have no impact on the federated network, which is built with the help of ActivityPub. They will not be able to own or delete posts from other servers on federation either with the threads that they created.
Since June, Threads has allowed for the posting of new content and comment reposting within the federated network which includes sharing of content across different servers. However, this new deletion policy only has an effect on the exposure of the posts on Threads itself.
All in all, users should understand that materials they post or reply at Threads will be deleted from the users’ profiles and all networks that the Blink federated with, within 24 hours.
