This is interesting.
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.
It’s an interesting debate, whether it’s actually beneficial to keep your posts active beyond 90 days or so, or whether you’d be better off deleting them, and your older thoughts and ideas. I mean, screenshots exist, so nothing’s ever erased entirely, but some users may feel that their older posts are not reflective of their thoughts and opinions years ahead.
Which is why this is an interesting experiment:
As you can see in this example screenshot, posted by all researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Threads is currently testing out a new option called “Ghost Posts,” (no doubt a nod to Snapchat) which would enable users to share an update that would be auto-archived after 24 hours.
As the pop-up explains:
“Ghost posts are archived after 24 hours. Replies go to messages, and only you can see who liked and replied.”
So it’s like a broadcast message, not designed to spark in-stream interaction as such, which will auto-erase after a day.
Why would you want that?
Well, you might have a political take that you want to share, but don’t care to debate, or maybe even a less divisive opinion that you just don’t really want to be challenged on.
That’s one of the key impediments to expanded social sharing, that users are now so wary of being criticized and attacked for their opinions, for whatever reason, that they often opt not to post, purely because they don’t have the energy, or conviction in their stance, to battle it out with strangers.
Because it’s draining. Sometimes, people will deliberately misinterpret something you said, or there’ll be a simple misunderstanding of the fact in question, yet you’ll end up going back and forth in overly aggressive remarks, purely because it’s difficult to imbue nuance or tone into your updates.
Which leads to angst, and that angst then stops users from posting again.
But maybe, if you could post something that doesn’t prompt public replies, and auto-deletes after a day, that would make people feel more free to comment more often.
Maybe.
It’s an interesting experiment either way, though the Threads team is still only in early testing, and have not outlined plans for a broader roll out just yet.
