Threads is experimenting with a new way to converse without leaving behind an indelible paper trail. The service’s “ghost posts,” which are text updates that vanish after 24 hours, started being offered to users, and the early reaction includes everything from curiosity to enthusiasm to skepticism.
Ephemeral posts are not novel in social media, but the concept of auto-expiring text in a public feed is a twist on a format popularized by Snapchat and Stories. For the Threads app, which is all about intimate, conversational, and real-time chatter back and forth, the addition could cut down “on timeline clutter as it may encourage followers to status more often without over-sharing” — or splinter engagement into content that gets less widely viewed before disappearing.
What Are Ghost Posts and How They Work on Threads
Ghost posts are common Threads updates that self-destruct in a day.
I feel conflicted about it, in that on the one hand I want more ways to encourage people and get support too, but on the other this might be more ephemeral and less binary (and also cut down my time investment). Early testers say likes only appear for the author and replies can only route to DMs, all of which are designed toward leaving lightweight expression there rather than public back-and-forth. Meta hasn’t published a detailed spec, and the rollout seems gradual, so behavior could change as the company collects feedback.
Ghost posts are somewhere between Instagram Stories and a regular post, functionally. Unlike Stories, they’re text-first and show up in the main feed; unlike regular posts, they are ephemeral. The concept echoes past experiments, such as X’s short-lived Fleets, and is in line with a broader industry trend toward low-stakes sharing.
Why Ephemera Keeps Returning to Social Media Feeds
Ephemeral formats lead to more participation by making it cheaper to be wrong or off-topic. Users can comment in real time — on a game, a news event, even a niche meme — free from fear that stray reactions will haunt their profiles. The loss of context has been among researchers’ longstanding explanations for why people self-censor at significantly higher rates online; vanishing content can relieve that strain.
The case for the viewers is clear as well. Snapchat recently passed 400 million daily active users in 2024 earnings updates from Snap Inc., while Instagram has reported previously that Stories combined drew hundreds of millions of daily viewers. When friction to post decreases, activity tends to go up — a cycle that Threads has been chasing since it first launched. Threads surpassed 175 million monthly active users last year, Meta said then, and functions that encourage casual posting are vital to maintaining that growth.
How Users Are Responding to Threads’ New Ghost Posts
Devotees see ghost posts as ideal for live commentary and hot takes that don’t age well. Sports fans can riff on a wild inning or a VAR call without making their profiles a wasteland of orphaned “I told you so’s.” The format, creators say, lowers the stakes if you want to brainstorm, test jokes, or just float an idea that may not deserve a permanent claim on grid space.
Critics are concerned with discoverability and community-building. If likes are private and replies move to DMs, conversations may splinter into one-on-one exchanges that others can do little to find, learn from, or join. Some also say that ephemeral text could depress engagement metrics with which brands and creators measure reach, potentially complicating campaign reporting.
Marketers see tactical upside — limited-time offers, pop-up Q&A, event chatter — but flag operational costs. If feedback flows into DMs, moderation and response workflows might get heavier. Simple controls (mute / archive / pin) and rudimentary analytics could make it more usable at scale.
Safety and Moderation Questions Around Ghost Posts
Ephemerality can empower reckless behavior and muddy accountability. Disappearing posts may also mean harassment or misinformation being less visible to bystanders and researchers, even if platforms keep server-side logs. Usually, people are allowed to report offending content on social apps, regardless of that content’s shelf life, though the shorter window can make enforcement and transparency more difficult.
Regulatory expectations are also rising. Under frameworks like the EU’s Digital Services Act, large platforms are also under increased focus for traceability and systemic risk. Features that move conversations into private channels, or make them disappear quickly, also tend to raise questions about evidence preservation and researcher access, especially in breaking news cycles.
What It Means for Threads if Ghost Posts Catch On
Ghost posts also reinforce Threads’ emphasis on a friendlier, more ambient feed than the competition. And if the format takes off, competitors will surely return to the depths of ephemeral text, as Stories spread through apps. If it flops, it’ll probably be because people want transient video and photos, not transient text, or perhaps that private-by-default reactions curtail the network effects that power open social platforms.
And whether ghost posts will, in the end, successfully protect their hosts depends on some details of execution: Are ghost posts opt-in per post or global settings? How do they — or other indications of potential harm — surface for others who encounter them in feeds? What messages about behavior are sent both to ranking systems and to people, even if actions are covertly taken because “at scale we cannot effectively check every user’s history”? And how transparent is it what your own safety tools can see?
For now, though, the mixed reactions are the point — the feature encourages more colloquial talk as well as fresh trade-offs. Threads is gambling that, for many of our connections, a short attendance in the moment is better than an eternal presence.
