Threads, Instagram’s stab at TikTok, introduced a new feature today with the curious name of ghost posts. No, it’s not that thing people do to each other on dating apps, although the choice of name certainly does evoke that.
It’s a new setting you can enable for your posts. Once enabled, you can only see the post’s likes and replies, not anyone else, and replies to your ghost posts go straight to your direct messages. After 24 hours, the ghost posts are archived.
Will it lead to confusion? Will people use it that much? And why is it grayed out?
how ghost posting works
“You can share unfiltered thoughts and fresh takes without the pressure of permanence or polish,” reads Meta’s announcement post. I’m fairly sure people are firing off loads of Threads messages every day, with polish being the furthest thing from their mind.
The point about not having to worry about permanence, though, makes sense. If you’re posting about something timely and topical, such as Thanksgiving dinner with the family or the anticipation of a major football game, you probably have no need for those inevitable straggler replies from someone months down the road.
Toggling a post to become a ghost post appears to be pretty simple. While you’re writing the post (and before you hit “post”), there’s a little puffy, partially dotted-line ghost-lookin’ fella near the text entry box.
Click it, and toggle it on. Then post. Now the clock starts ticking down to 24 hours, when it’ll be archived and no longer visible. There doesn’t appear to be any way to change the time setting. Twenty-four hours is what you get, no exceptions.
You’ll know you’re looking at a ghost post because it’ll be slightly grayed out. I wonder, though, if that’s obvious enough when people are half-paying attention and scrolling. Will people not notice, say, when their phone screens are in direct sunlight, and end up posting a reply that goes straight to the poster’s direct message inbox when they’d meant for it to become a public comment?
Graying them out, too, seems like a strange choice as a differentiator from regular posts. When I see a grayed-out post, I take it to mean it’s no longer currently active, not that it’ll become inactive at some point in the near future.
I suppose we’ll find out if, in practice, people find it clunky or not. Threads introduces the feature today, so it’s probably already on your Threads app as you read this.
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