Facebook's Snapchat Clone Just Got a Little Less Ridiculous

By Ashley Feinberg on at

Slingshot, Facebook's second swing at Snapchat-like ephemera, may be pretty to look at, but until now, it's suffered from one huge problem: It didn't make a lick of sense. Thankfully, Facebook's finally remedied that by getting rid of its absurd reply-to-unlock feature. In other words—you can actually use it to have a normal conversation.

Before today's update, your friends wouldn't actually be able to see the image you sent them until they replied (or "reacted") with one of their own. So if they wanted to react to the original photo itself, they'd actually be sending two photos your way, begetting an exponentially increasing garbage dump of self-destructing photos that would consume you until your dying day. But no more!

Now, any reaction you receive can be immediately replied to with a photo, video, or text message. Slingshot's also added a "My People" feature, which lets you see everyone you're currently Slinging with in one complete list. Similar—one might say—to Snapchat.

Does this mean Slingshot is going to overtake Snapchat for the ephemeral media crown? No, probably not. But hey—at least it's finally usable. [Slingshot]