Fleets* Is Dead (*Fleets Was Twitter’s Answer to Instagram Stories Which Was Instagram’s Answer to Snapchat Which Was Silicon Valley’s Answer to Dick Pics)

Twitter announced on Wednesday that it is killing its fleet feature , which I frankly forgot existed . The news will weigh to the minuscule gaggle of insufferable Twitter superusers who posted fleet and literally no one else .

Launched globally last November , Fleets are Twitter ’s take on content that vanish after 24 hour — its version of Instagram Stories , which Facebook ripped off from Snapchat , which is a companionship thatcurrently subsist . Today , some translation of a Snapchat knockoff lives on most social medium platforms , including LinkedIn for reasons outside the orbit of soulful comprehension .

“ We built Fleets as a lower - pressure , ephemeral path for people to share their fleeting thoughts . We hoped Fleets would serve more masses feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter , ” Ilya Brown , Twitter ’s head of product , firebrand and television , wrote in ablog postannouncing fleet ’ dying . “ But , in the time since we introduced fleet to everyone , we have n’t see an increase in the number of new citizenry link the conversation with fleet like we hop . ”

Screenshot:Gizmodo/Twitter

The trouble , according to Brown , is that “ Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to magnify their own tweet , ” not people who are worried about tweeting in the first billet . This resultant is both entirely predictable and a sliver of good newsworthiness : People should not be advance to twirp more , especially if they ’re already second - guessing whether it ’s a good approximation to place something on the net .

To be utterly clear , I suck at Twitter and my only advice for anyone looking to grow their social media presence is , do n’t . But what I can say with self-assurance is that “ ephemeral ” posts on social medium are a Trygve Halvden Lie . Anything you say online can quickly become permanent in fashion that are entirely out of your controller — just ask Brandi Levy , whose posts on Snapchat led toa goddamn Supreme Court casebecause people copied them and started sharing them around her gamey school . To the extent that Fleets ’ death matters at all , which it does n’t , it ’s skilful that the universe will have one fewer way for people to complicate their life by posting .

So , as of August 3 , Fleets will melt as a feature of speech , which seems tending for a feature build entirely around the assumption of disappearance . And on that day , dead nothing will convert , nothing will be lose , and we ’ll all once again leave any of this ever go on .

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