Threads is pretty chill and has a couple things going for it: my Insta followers/friends are automatically imported, no ads so far, recommendation algorithm works reasonably well (although it keeps pushing up Shaq for some reason), and there are some nice posi meme-y vibes. People talking about cooking and travel and music—no weird politics or crypto scammer stuff on every comment. Hopefully it stays that way for longer.
> although it keeps pushing up Shaq for some reason
I was impressed that day one they basically most likely spent weeks/months behind the scenes reaching out to all "blue checkmark" people from Instagram/Twitter and encouraging them to get all set up on Threads ahead of time. At least I think that's what happened. They probably paid them to do it too lol
> no ads so far, recommendation algorithm works reasonably well (although it keeps pushing up Shaq for some reason), and there are some nice posi meme-y vibes. People talking about cooking and travel and music—no weird politics or crypto scammer stuff on every comment. Hopefully it stays that way for longer.
Why do you expect any different from the same company who even knows that its algorithm that was seen as toxic [0] from Instagram is now on Threads? They are certainly going to push ads when they have the chance and Meta will not change.
This euphoria always happens at the start of another platform existing and given it is by Meta again, I will expect them to screw over their users just like they always have done.
Ye you're probably right. I'm not against ads on principle, I just hope they do it in a way that isn't super obtrusive. I feel like they got a good thing going on with the initial hype cycle. This is like the first time Meta/Facebook has been seen as cool in like ten years.
Why's it gotta be about money? Sometimes it's interesting to follow what other people in the field are doing. I used to follow a ton of ML and compiler researchers on Twitter. Was a ton of interesting conversations around 2013-2015.
Few reasons:
1. I've gotten value from these folks on other platforms and mediums
2. I'm interested in what they have to share
3. I hope that starting to populate my following helps to choke out all of the bullshit brand recommendations I'm getting
Reason for sharing: can't imagine I'm the only one.
Not sure what you mean about the money thing. Whether you mean me or another person hypothetically following, I don't see a direct way to make money off of it.
This is very true. Meta has a huge advantage at creating a rival to Twitter since they have Instagram as their source of users.
My believe is that Zuckerberg will use Threads as his bullhorn the way Musk uses Twitter. We will be hearing more from him to advance Meta's goals. He has learned from Musk that having a place to speak from directly to millions of people can be of great advantage to his businesses and popularity. He should also know, given Musk's example, that there are little consequences from saying the wrong things so he has little to lose.
We'll never see a fight between the two but we will see a lot more of this loud mouth type of rivalry between the two. In time, we'll see people separate into team Zuck and team Musk online.
The way I see it, his long term goal is to be president someday. He's won the money game. There's not much more gain there. But if he becomes president he will be in the history books forever. Threads will become a perfect place for him to increase his popularity among all the American voters.
I gotta say removing political/controversial topics isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just depends on your use case and stuff. Not every platform needs to be a free speech zone—right now it feels like a pretty chill space to share food pics and talk about inconsequential topics with friends.
How are they already tagging accounts as "repeatedly posting false information that was reviewed by our independent fact checkers" if they've only been up for what, a day? Seems a bit premature unless they already had a pre-written blacklist.
You can do something repeatedly in the space of 24 hours, and if there isn't a backlog (and its hard to have one before you launch), there's no reason fact-check review of non-complicated cases has to have high latency.
There are (1) people like J.K. Rowling, (2) people like Kiwi Farms, and (3) people who can’t tell the difference between (2) and (3). (3) likes to use the word “transphobic” indiscriminately.
To be fair I don’t know if the people involved are complaining about (1) or (2) or both but they are using a word that I am putting in quotes.
