Social media giant, Twitter, is set to remove Fleets, its vanishing-post feature.
The San Francisco-based tech platform said it will remove the feature effective August 3, 2021.
It made the announcement via a tweet on Wednesday evening:
we’re removing Fleets on August 3, working on some new stuff
we’re sorry or you’re welcome
— Twitter (@Twitter) July 14, 2021
Twitter’s reason for shutting down the ephemeral tweet format may not be unconnected to low usage after its launch just eight months ago.
Starting on August 3, users will instead just see active Spaces — Twitter’s live audio chat rooms — at the top of their timelines. And the composer for traditional tweets will be updated with more camera editing features from Fleets, like text-formatting and GIF stickers over photos.
Explaining the probable reason for the decision to discontinue the feature, Twitter’s vice president of product, Ilya Brown, said in a statement quoted by tech news website The Verge, “We hoped Fleets would help more people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter.