Fleets: AOC and other Twitter users criticise new ‘stories’ feature over security and stress
‘Does the fleets thing stress anyone else out’ the congresswoman asked on Twitter
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Your support makes all the difference.Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that ‘Fleets’ – Twitter 's new Stories-like function – “stress[es]” her out.
“Does the fleets thing stress anyone else out? Like I use Twitter to get away from IG stories, not have it follow me around on every platform reminding me that I don’t have makeup on”, the Democrat senator from New York tweeted.
“Can we put the bar of circles at the bottom at least? (I’m at the bargaining phase of this clearly)” she also said.
Fleets are similar to Instagram Stories and Snapchat Stories, where people can share posts that disappear after 24 hours.
Fleets - a take on the term fleeting moments - is designed to help users feel more comfortable participating on the platform in a "lower pressure way" without the need to worry about retweets and likes.
"We've learned that some people feel more comfortable joining conversations on Twitter with this ephemeral format, so what they're saying lives just for a moment in time," said Twitter's Joshua Harris, director of design, and Sam Haveson, product manager, in a blog post.
However, many users mocked the update, asked instead for an edit button, and called for Donald Trump’s account to be deleted instead – something that may occur when he is no longer the president.
The functionality of fleets has also appeared in many other apps. Snapchat introduced Stories in October 2013, which last for 24 hours and appear at the top of the app screen.
In 2016 Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, followed suit, launching Instagram Stories. In 2018, Instagram Stories became more popular than Snapchat Stories; the company said that 400 million people use the feature every day, surpassing Snapchat’s daily active user count in eight months.
Since then, YouTube, LinkedIn, AirBnb, Facebook, Skype, and many other apps have all introduced their own versions of Stories.
However, Twitter’s fleets have been introduced with a notable lack of security features. Users are not informed when someone screenshots a fleet, as they are when someone takes similar action on other apps, and users are able to tag accounts that have blocked them without notifying the user.
The Independent has reached out to Twitter for comment.
As well as Fleets, Twitter is introducing “Spaces”, which will allow for group chats via voice recordings, similar to its voice tweet function.
Currently, that function is being rolled out to women and people of colour before reaching Twitter’s wider user base. If it proves successful, the feature will be coming later this year.
With access to Spaces, users will be able to see who is part of the group conversation and who is talking. The person who hosts the Space will be able to control who can or cannot participate.
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