After they were spotted in testing several times over the past few months, Threads has now officially launched its new “Ghost Posts,” which are essentially temporary updates that disappear after 24 hours on display in the app.
Well, they disappear from view at least. Ghosts Posts are auto-archived after a day, so they’ll still be available to you (and likely used to help inform the Threads algorithm about your usage and interests), but for everyone else, they’ll be gone. Which could embolden some users to share their more edgy takes, with less concern for recourse.
As you can see in these example screens, you’ll be able to switch over to a ghost post within the Threads composer, which will also change the presentation of your update on-screen, so that you’re aware when you’re creating a regular or temporary post. You won’t be able to attach photos or images to Ghost Posts, while you also won’t be able to edit your replies to a temporary update (though you will be able to edit the main update). Ghosts Posts also won’t be shared to the Fediverse, if you have this feature enabled.
As you can see in the second image above, Ghost Posts will also appear in a speech bubble-like display in the feed, so that users know they’ll only be around for a day.
Once they’re live, Ghosts Posts will be listed in a dedicated tab on your profile, and will be automatically archived after 24 hours. Replies to Ghost Posts will go into your inbox, so you’ll still be able to engage with them after the display period. But the post itself will only be seen in the app for a day.
Meta’s hoping that this will take some of the pressure off of social sharing, with fewer people posting personal updates than they used to, largely due to the concerns they have about potential judgment and criticism for their random thoughts.
Which was once a key drawcard of social media apps, having an opportunity to share your thoughts with the world, but as Meta’s own data shows:
This is from Meta’s defense against the FTC’s monopoly case, which Meta presented earlier this year. As you can see, Meta’s data shows that, over time, people are engaging less with updates from friends, which now accounts for only a minor fraction of time spent in its apps.
But maybe, if people feel less pressure about what they post, because it won’t be held against them in perpetuity, that could be a good thing, and could free people up to share more of their thoughts and opinions.
And that may fit even better on Threads than these other apps. In fact, temporary posts have actually been part of the Threads development pipeline since the beginning.
Back when Threads was first launched, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri mused several times about auto-deletion or auto-archiving of posts, and whether it would be better for Threads to auto-archive all posts after a certain period of time. Many users were opposed to this as a blanket concept, but the Threads team eventually launched auto-archive as an option, providing a means to hide your posts from view after a certain period of time.
Ghost posts are the next evolution of this, providing an alternative on this front, as opposed to forcing all users into auto-archiving.
So will it work?
Well, I don’t know. Definitely, there’s a case for disappearing posts (as Snapchat illustrates), and a level of deniability in sharing your more radical opinions. And with Threads looking to get people sharing more of their thoughts and opinions, these two concepts align, but it may also require a habitual shift, that could be difficult to overcome. Most of us have now become so used to social platforms as an entertainment source, that mindless scrolling is the norm, so prompting people to actually engage may be difficult.
But it’s worth trying, and it could help to make Threads a more vibrant place for topical conversation.