Twitter has recently rolled out its new feature called ‘Fleets.’ It lets the users post ephemeral content, which means that it allows the users to post short stories, media files overlayed by some text that remain visible to all the followers for 24 hours, but after that, they disappear. This type of ephemeral content is already quite popular on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, etc. So, Twitter users were also happy with this feature that was launched a week ago. However, a bug has been found that is related to Fleets and disables their basic functionality.
Suppose you posted a Fleet a day ago. Now, because of this flaw, certain things will happen. First of all, your Fleet may remain visible after 24 hours. If it disappears from Twitter, it may remain available at the back-end servers. This bug lets anyone access, and download your Fleets without ever alerting you that your Fleet has been read by someone, which is not normal because normally when someone checks out your Fleets, you get a ‘read’ notification for that. This means that anyone can archive your Fleets even after their 24 hours expiration period has passed.
When an app was used to interact with Twitter’s back-end servers through its developer API, the servers returned a long list of Fleets with a designated URL for each Fleet. When that URL was used in a browser, the whole image or video that was integrated into the Fleet by the user was downloaded. This suggests that even if your Fleets disappear after 24 hours from your Twitter, they will still be available at the back-end and the server will still be able to return URL links for those already disappeared Fleets.
Twitter is well-aware of this bug and a spokesperson also reassured that the company is trying to fix it. A fix for this bug means that Fleets will disappear from Twitter after 24 hours and will not be available after the expiration period has passed. However, they will not be deleted from its servers for a month at least. If there is a violation of policies, then the servers may hold those Fleets for a longer period.
Ephemeral content is something that a user does not want to remain uploaded for a very long time. It is just a passing, fleeting message, and it is not supposed to remain visible after a short period. So, this bug seems to be affecting the exact functionality and purpose of these Fleets. We hope that Twitter fixes it as soon as possible.
Read next: Twitter tests several new updates including an ‘Ouch’ reaction to tweets, an Auto blocking option, and let the users choose when they want to upload high-quality images
Suppose you posted a Fleet a day ago. Now, because of this flaw, certain things will happen. First of all, your Fleet may remain visible after 24 hours. If it disappears from Twitter, it may remain available at the back-end servers. This bug lets anyone access, and download your Fleets without ever alerting you that your Fleet has been read by someone, which is not normal because normally when someone checks out your Fleets, you get a ‘read’ notification for that. This means that anyone can archive your Fleets even after their 24 hours expiration period has passed.
When an app was used to interact with Twitter’s back-end servers through its developer API, the servers returned a long list of Fleets with a designated URL for each Fleet. When that URL was used in a browser, the whole image or video that was integrated into the Fleet by the user was downloaded. This suggests that even if your Fleets disappear after 24 hours from your Twitter, they will still be available at the back-end and the server will still be able to return URL links for those already disappeared Fleets.
Twitter is well-aware of this bug and a spokesperson also reassured that the company is trying to fix it. A fix for this bug means that Fleets will disappear from Twitter after 24 hours and will not be available after the expiration period has passed. However, they will not be deleted from its servers for a month at least. If there is a violation of policies, then the servers may hold those Fleets for a longer period.
Ephemeral content is something that a user does not want to remain uploaded for a very long time. It is just a passing, fleeting message, and it is not supposed to remain visible after a short period. So, this bug seems to be affecting the exact functionality and purpose of these Fleets. We hope that Twitter fixes it as soon as possible.
Read next: Twitter tests several new updates including an ‘Ouch’ reaction to tweets, an Auto blocking option, and let the users choose when they want to upload high-quality images
