Chennai, Mar 05 :
Twitter announced that it was introducing a new feature in Brazil that would allow users to post ephemeral tweets that disappear in 24 hours. The popular ‘stories’ feature of Instagram is what Twitter was going for with ‘Fleets’ but twitterati are none too impressed.
To compose a fleet, users must tap the + icon and upload text, photos, videos and GIFs. Anybody can see a user’s fleets but one can only respond via DM and not by liking, retweeting or sharing.
Speaking about the rationale behind introducing Fleets, Twitter’s Product Lead Kavyon Beykpour was quoted as saying by yourstory.com, “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 (keeping in mind the number of likes and retweets one would get).”
“We’re hoping that fleets can help people share the fleeting thoughts they would have been unlikely to tweet,” Twitter said, introducing the feature in Brazil.
But on a platform where users engage more politically than on other social media, where tweets are fact-checked by other users quote-tweeting original tweets, or major reactionary trends are set off based on a particular tweet, the short life of fleets is seen as problematic. #RIPTwitter began trending globally after Twitter’s announcement introducing Fleets, with many users pointing out the uselessness of the feature—particularly when Twitter has not acceded to numerous demands for an option to edit tweets.
