Facebook is testing a new feature on a
small group of its users, which lets them set a timer on their posts to make
them “self destruct”. This means that their content is automatically deleted after they've been up on the site for a certain amount of time.
This experimental “post expiration”
feature lets users delete posts after leaving them online for anything from
hour to a week, reports suggest. However, it’s not yet clear if Facebook
deletes the message from its own servers or simply removes it from your public
profile, so people can’t see it anymore.
How will it affect you?
Like many Facebook experiments, this
idea may never actually show up on your Facebook page. We don’t know if or when
Facebook will roll out the feature to more users, because it often tests new
ideas on smaller groups first. If the trial is a success, it could become one
of the features on the wider site.
Users who have seen the system have said
it simply lets you choose an “expiration” time from a set list ranging
from one hour to seven days. However, you do have to make the selection for
each new post you make, rather than apply it to all posts, which could soon
prove cumbersome.
What do we think?
We think this is a great idea. Services
with “self destructing” posts such as Snapchat, which Facebook reportedly tried to buy earlier this year, have taken off
for a good reason: we may want something posted online at the time, but don’t
necessarily wish for it to show up next to our name several years down the
line.
We think Facebook should take this a
step further, and we would like to see a system whereby all posts are archived
out of public view after a certain time.
This is undoubtedly a welcome first
step, though, and we hope that this pilot project makes it through to the wider
site. It would certainly give Facebook some much needed privacy credentials.
