Meta just ripped off Snapchat in the most hilarious way

Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook and several other US-based social networking services, has rolled an all-new feature out to Threads, its premier microblogging platform. Known as ghost posts, this new tool allows users to publish disappearing content on their Threads page, which gets automatically archived after a twenty-four-hour period.

“Here today and gone tomorrow, you can feel confident trying new things and posting spontaneous thoughts. Replies to ghost posts are sent to your messaging inbox, and only you can see who liked and replied. To create a ghost post, just toggle on the ghost icon,” says Meta in a newsroom post.

A new ghost post toggle is available within the main Threads composer interface across both the web and mobile, and uploaded ghost posts appear on users’ timelines with a dotted bubble surrounding them to denote their transience. Unlike with standard Threads posts, which can be publicly interacted with, comments, replies, and likes made on ghost posts are routed via DM inbox for increased anonymity.

Ghost posts for Threads arrive at the perfect time

Meta clearly wants in on the spooky season vibes

Meta first announced plans to implement an auto-archive function into its Threads platform back in April 2024. It’s taken some time for the option to be, erm, threaded into the Threads experience in a stable, public-facing manner, but it’s here now. With spooky season in full swing and Halloween taking place this Friday, October, 31, Meta’s evocation of ghosts is appropriate here.

Of course, fellow social networking site Snapchat might have a thing or two to say about Meta’s adoption of the ghost motif: Snap Inc. was the first to bring vanishing messages into the mainstream, and its iconic phantom glyph has become synonymous with not only the Snapchat brand, but also with disappearing internet content as a whole.

I’ll be curious to see whether ghost posts take off for Threads, or whether it’ll be a passing fad that fizzles out after the initial hype and curiosity surrounding the feature inevitably subsides. If it proves popular enough with fans, I can see competitors like X emulating its utility in a nearly one-to-one manner. We could be about to witness the Snapchatification of the entire microblogging sphere — and I’m not sure how to feel about that kind of potential development.