The company will launch a story function that looks a lot like the ones at competitors Instagram and Snapchat—but there are already fears that it could be abused.
The announcement: On Wednesday, the company announced that it was testing “fleets” in Brazil. These are tweets that disappear after 24 hours and live their brief existence in a separate timeline. In a series of tweets, product manager Kayvon Beykpour acknowledged what we were all thinking: This is the Twitter version of Instagram’s and Snapchat’s story feature. It’s not completely news—the company has been testing it out for more than a year, according to The Verge (though in-house testing was allegedly very secretive).
How does a fleet work? Tap a plus icon on the story row at the top of the app and create your tweet (images, videos, and GIFs are all fair game, so long as it’s up to the standard max of 280 characters). Once you post, the fleet hangs out for 24 hours for Twitter to see, along with the fleets of those of your followers and people you follow. You can’t retweet a fleet, but you can react with emoji; if you feel the urge to respond with text, a DM pops up. Otherwise, 24 hours after you fleet, it’s gone.
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