Facebook Testing Self-Destructing Status Updates

Because your 493 Facebook friends likely won’t care in 50 years into the future (or honestly, 50 seconds from now) that you’re out grabbing fro-yo with your besties, Facebook is testing an option that would allow users to set a time limit on how long those updates appear on your timeline.

In what sounds like something along the lines of Snapchat — where photos sent to your friends self-destruct after anywhere from one to 15 seconds, vanishing into the ether like grainy photo demons banished to the fiery from whence they came, never to sear the eyes of mere mortals e’er again, etc. — a Facebook spokesman says the company is testing a new feature as part of a “small pilot.”

The test group includes certain people using the Facebook iOS, reports CNN. It could be you — users are reporting the feature appearing on their iPhones, with expiration options running from one hour to a full week.

Ideally, this could be good for soliciting responses to things like a room or apartment for rent, a pet up for adoption or anything else you want to advertise for a short period of time, but don’t necessarily want up for all posterity.

Facebook testing disappearing posts [CNN]

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