Threads hits 175 million users after a year

July 3, 2024 10:02 AM

The Verge: Meta’s rival to Elon Musk’s X is still growing, just not as quickly. What will the next year hold?
posted by buffy12 (23 comments total)

About every month or so I have occasion to use the instagram app. Each time I scroll down I see some suggested threads, I click to read more because the preview doesn't show all the content and it seems like an interesting post, but it takes me to a sign up page and I back away. This happens about 3 or 4 times before I realize yet again that they are intentionally previewing longer threads posts to make people click to finish reading the post. It's the worst of the clickbait patterns.
posted by TwoWordReview at 10:33 AM on July 3 [34 favorites]

If you are a lurker like me and don't do a lot of liking or commenting, the default feed on Threads reads like a sanitized Penthouse Forum: story after story after story sounding like it would be the author's "best ever" party tale, most of them obviously untrue. And political content creators universally report that they are intentionally ghosted and deplatformed by the algorithms. Overall pretty crap.
posted by bgribble at 10:40 AM on July 3 [16 favorites]

I haven't touched it. If it's half as useful as Facebook, I assume it is nothing more than a smoldering crater. (I use FB to find out when underground bands are playing in my city and to talk to 3 people who refuse to use email, SMS, or any other mode of communication. The app is barely functional for these purposes.)
posted by Dark Messiah at 10:59 AM on July 3 [3 favorites]

I use it a lot and find it fairly pleasant and remarkably Nazi-free. The Twitter of yesteryear was a good source for local and breaking news, which Threads is decidedly not, but that could change over time.
posted by tommasz at 11:02 AM on July 3 [4 favorites]

I want it to take off as a nice introduction to the fediverse—I have a lot of friends using it, but not original recipe Mastodon, and I want them to turn on the fediverse integration so that I can follow them and eventually be able to reply to them.

The algorithm is as bad as anything else facebook or Instagram shows unless you are relentless about what you focus on. Instagram still provides users with a chronological feed of their friends and still lets you turn off "suggested for you" posts (though it gets harder every few months to find the settings), but Facebook at this point is nothing but ads (fine, whatever) and AI-generated "Best Funny Comic of The Day" posts that at least seem to credit the authors of the webcomic (awful, but better than the "Extremely Narrow Fanbase Shitposting" posts I was getting a year ago). But, theoretically, it introduces people to a more generalized microblogging service and therefore is a net good.

(I desperately want more folks on the fediverse in general. There were like five people on the #copaamerica hashtag the last 48 hours, and goddammit my URUUSA VAR/Supreme Court joke was one of the first and should have taken off!)
posted by thecaddy at 11:12 AM on July 3 [3 favorites]

Man, fuck Threads. I'm currently banned from commenting on Instagram and Threads until Friday, for some unknown reason (the only thing I can think of that anyone might have found remotely bothersome was that I posted a few Instagram stories in support of artists who had an exhibit taken down by a nonprofit gallery, as well as in support of artists who had their work stolen by SHEIN). Despite having selected the button several times to dispute this, there is no recourse, no one to speak to, and no ticket listing what I supposedly did to become this alleged danger to the community. I already didn't use it much, and now I'm even less interested in using it.

I know Twitter recently said they were going to make likes private. I appreciated that they were public by default—it was a way to get insight into who people were, and lots of trolls and even a few politicians were leveled by people noticing their likes. (It was also a way to find NSFW recommendations, in a roundabout way, because you could see all the NSFW posts people were liking—which no doubt is why they're disabling it, since Twitter seems to be interested in supporting more adult content.)

But yeah, along those lines, one of the other obnoxious things about Threads is that as with Instagram, you have to dig into your settings to see a feed of all the things you've liked before. You can like something, then the Threads feed refreshes and you'll never see it again, because even if it's in your list of likes under settings, the app's search isn't good either. The app feels slippery in its UX and impermanent, like you may never see anything you see on there ever again unless you repost it. (I do think the decision to make reposts their own tab was a good one, but I still don't like that that's my only way to really save anything, because reposts can be misinterpreted as endorsements.)

The thing that is interesting about Threads is that for me, Instagram has always been an art-focused space. So there were a lot of jokes at first about whether visual artists' perspective would translate into the largely text-based medium of Threads, but I do think it's kind of expanded people's expressive range and led to interesting text-based posts from people who normally would just share a video or image on Instagram. That said, I have no idea who a lot of people are on Threads, because people haven't always defaulted to using the same username on Instagram and Threads. So cuteshopname account on Instagram might be personsformalrealname on Threads, and that's also a bit disjunctive. It feels like this app that I for some reason have all these connections on who I don't know at all who are sharing personal anecdotes.

That part is interesting, but I would like it more if it didn't have the other issues, as well as if it were federated. I don't want to go to this one weird app all the time to see text-based things. I would like to see them all in one feed that's nowhere near that app. I guess we'll see what happens with those efforts. Same with Bluesky... It technically is starting to support federation, but that's just it, it's highly technical, from what I can see.
posted by limeonaire at 11:14 AM on July 3 [6 favorites]

Another non-Threads user here. In general I've been tightening up my social media. It has been around 2 or three years since I've accessed any of the three...four? Twitter accounts I had, aside from clicking on a link to Twitter which seems to know who I am still. I've mentioned my bad experiences with TikTok here before, I haven't tried going back.

Facebook is for old people I know, to keep up with their lives; I have removed myself from almost literally every group and every page (other than local stuff I'm actively part of in the Real World) so I only see things I'm actually connected to.

Instagram is for young people I know, to keep up with their lives, but also some industry accounts that post useful or interesting things, and a lot of artists I like too.

I only post original content on both; I will re-post other people's stuff to my Instagram story but don't really expect anyone to see it. I have a Mastodon account for when I want to scroll through interesting or witty things; I participate in #lastfourwatched, #caturday, and #silentsunday when the mood strikes me but otherwise don't post much there.

The most significant thing I do is if Facebook recommends something, I hit the "x" and hide it. If Facebook shows me more than 3 suggestions, I close the app. Not just switch away, actively close it . On Instagram, when I get to "you're caught up!", also, close it right then. I do my best not to feed the algorithm, and hopefully this tells the algorithm that its input is not needed.

(On Instagram, they do manage to slip in a side-scrolling "recommended" entry from time to time, and I find if I stop and watch the two second thumbnail, that's enough for the algorithm to decide to show me more of those, which is why it now only shows me people dressed in homemade costumes at Disneyland).

Surprisingly, LinkedIn is one form of social media I keep an eye on too, because it's largely apolitical and I follow enough creatives that it really is a nicely filtered list of interesting things.

There's still enough to keep my mind dull if that's what I feel like doing, but I don't need to see everything, I have to remind myself I have better things to do.
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:35 AM on July 3 [1 favorite]

There's a LOT of really good SF authors on Bluesky. All I post there is my art, but what I see in my very limited feed is pretty high quality. (I will not do Threads.) My interactive social feed is on Mastodon / toot.cat
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:38 AM on July 3 [4 favorites]

Threads hits 175 million users after a year

(Although I'm a bit suspicious if those are real users, or just people who were coerced to click through by Instagram or Facebook's constant reminding that Threads exists, but have never returned to it since)
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:42 AM on July 3 [11 favorites]

Yeah, I am a Threads "user" but I've never posted or engaged with the platform other than to read the rest of a paragraph that begins with

"Well, the results of the biopsy came back today..." or
"LADIES, what is one thing that surprised you about menopause?" or
"LADIES, do you regret having children?" or
"LADIES, help me settle a bet: is it true that belly fat is just organs?" or
"Most people don't know that a checking account is actually" or
"Here's a travel hack: use points for airfare but DON'T do this"

It's just clickbait all the way down? None of the posters are recognizable to me (someone who's been extremely online since early Twitter) nor do they seem to be reporting in a professional context, i.e. coverage of current events as an employee of CNN, the way Twitter would spotlight actual news sources. I refuse to engage with the app any more than I already do, so I won't be refining the algorithm or whatever. It's just crap upon crap upon crap.
posted by knotty knots at 12:19 PM on July 3 [2 favorites]

It's just clickbait all the way down?

No. I've been on Threads since week 1 and I've been slowly but surely finding new, interesting people to follow. I also have a hairtrigger blocking finger. The algo there used to throw a lot of business jerk LinkedIn type of users my way and I block them all. I do not block hilarious LinkedIn mockery, though, so I think the algo is learnin' and now I'm starting to see more of that than the sincere business jerk crap.

The experience has been remarkably nazi-free for me. Probably because I follow lots of folks who are politically not conservative/nazi and because of my aforementioned hairtrigger blocking finger.

As a result of following NBA/WNBA fans on Threads, I actually have been getting drawn into the pro basketball world more and I'm enjoying it. W/NBA Threads has a vibrant and growing community as is black Threads. I'm going to start following more baseball people as well.

I'm iggydavidlou over there in case anyone cares.
posted by NoMich at 1:17 PM on July 3

Being somebody who works in the cultural industries, instagram has kind of taken over the space where twitter and facebook were - in some ways this is good, because it is a great showcase and a better format than either of those two networks. In others it’s bad because it’s hard to get people out of the scrolling mindset, it’s atemporal so that makes it hard to target the right time, etc.

I’ve never heard of any institution doing things with threads. I’m sure they’re doing stuff, but I’m not hearing about it, in the way that people recommend instagram feeds for museums.
posted by The River Ivel at 6:15 PM on July 3 [3 favorites]

Mastodon is ok but too laid back and Bluesky is sort of a weaker twitter without the bad parts (mostly) but not really that many good parts. If they both dissapeared today, it would probably take me a few days to notice, and my reaction would be *shrugs*.
My only relevant social networks are MeFi and the slack and forums of Codex, an SFF writers group. I'm also in a few discords but don't check them out more than once or twice a month.
Small scale networks seem to be my thing.
posted by signal at 6:59 PM on July 3 [1 favorite]

Threads is too much Meta. Mastodon is Twitter for people who compile Linux from source. Get onto Bluesky.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 7:34 PM on July 3 [1 favorite]

Threads is too much Meta. Mastodon is Twitter for people who compile Linux from source. Get onto Bluesky.

If you must use a microblog this is pretty good advice
posted by lescour at 7:41 PM on July 3 [2 favorites]

I see a *lot* of people using Instagram - not in my professional work so much (academia, futures), but in the rest of life. Lots of very small business owners use Insta as their main web presence.

Threads... I've been trying to use it, posting to the thing, but have engaged with very few people there so far.
posted by doctornemo at 8:11 PM on July 3

Anything Meta is terrible. Their algorithm seems to think I like bicycles, vacation videos by people with overly good cameras for what they're filming, and people who desperately want to become viral. I suggest to the algorithm they're wrong. Even telling them to not recommend this account or that account. Guess which shit I still get promoted? The things I specifically told them I didn't want to see. Facebook died because it became the land of my old parents and relatives I haven't seen in 30 years. Instagram is dying because their algorithm is dying into facebook level awful. I quit twitter as soon as the former owners said they'd sell to Musk. And TikTok fuck that. I technically work for them as an outside vendor but I would love nothing more than for them to cease to exist. And their client rep isn't that bad! (Peloton's reps can get fucked). Social media had a good run. But now I'm just done.
posted by downtohisturtles at 8:35 PM on July 3

I like Mastodon, and I've never compiled software in my life. I'm in my little community, I follow art accounts, interact with the people who's content I enjoy, and have fun. I don't need a fire hose of content.

Threads is Meta: Nope. Bluesky is by a former Twitter dude, right? No thanks. I'll stay small.
posted by lianove3 at 8:44 PM on July 3 [1 favorite]

@llanove3 Former Twitter guy is gone as he was trying to make Bluesky into the same techbro fantasy anonymous hate masquerading as free speech hellsite as Twitter and they wouldn't let him.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:20 AM on July 4

I’d kind of like to thank Instagram for making a spectacularly dumb change, one that’s helped me nope out and close the app whenever it pops up: I get add breaks now, where I can’t scroll past some paid bullshit, complete with a countdown timer that lets me know just how much longer I’ll have to watch an add for something I don’t need and would never buy.

Before that, and almost always as a social media site of absolute last resort, already scrolls through everything else, too lazy to put the phone down and do something, Instagram was a perfect time suck. Facebook and Twitter still allow for the possibility of a chronological timeline where you only see things you actually want to, but I’m usually stunned when I see something on instagram that I actually followed. Even then they have the never ending spigot of things that are almost kind of the thing you want, but having done away with anything chronological, I would almost never reach the thing I’d seen last time (my cue to close Facebook or Twitter). On those rare moments where I succumbed, I’d end up scrolling past all that crap for half an hour before I realized what I was doing and closed the app in personal embarrassment.

Now? About a minute after I open it, I get an ad break and close the app. Nothing like seeing people with a perfect human trap fuck it up because they think there’s more blood to get from the stone. I’d love to think it’ll end up being a “tumblr bans porn” level fuckup, but somehow YouTube is still cranking along.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:48 AM on July 4 [2 favorites]

Bluesky company history.
posted by Pendragon at 12:49 AM on July 4

Threads for me seems to be full of people cordially making small talk, which is something I hadn’t really seen on social media before.

It’s like being early to a wedding reception. A few people are watching the game at the bar, somebody’s telling a funny anecdote, people are talking about the weather and lol did you know Taylor Swift is in town.

I’m curious to see what comes next. It feels like there needs to be some event or topic that drives people to Threads, but not sure what it would be.
posted by smelendez at 11:43 AM on July 4

Meta thinks that I like old comic books and videos of women in tight pants. It's not actually wrong, but it is kind of reductive and annoying, like when a distant relative finds out you said you liked Star Wars and gives you a Star Wars-themed coffee mug every Christmas. "Here's that thing you like!!" Thanks, dude. (And the Reels appearing on my feed are kind of embarrassing if you're in public, sort of like if coworkers stop by your desk and see dozens of Baby Yoda cups. People talk.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:20 AM on July 5