Thursday, July 6th 2023
Meta Launches Threads to Take on Twitter
Mark Zuckerberg just announced the initial version of Threads, an app built by the Instagram team for sharing with text. Whether you're a creator or a casual poster, Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations. We are working toward making Threads compatible with the open, interoperable social networks that we believe can shape the future of the internet.
Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos. Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas. Just like on Instagram, with Threads you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests - including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond. And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls.
Join the Conversation from Instagram
It's easy to get started with Threads: simply use your Instagram account to log in. Your Instagram username and verification will carry over, with the option to customize your profile specifically for Threads.
Everyone who is under 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private profile when they join Threads. You can choose to follow the same accounts you do on Instagram, and find more people who care about the same things you do. The core accessibility features available on Instagram today, such as screen reader support and AI-generated image descriptions, are also enabled on Threads.
Your feed on Threads includes threads posted by people you follow, and recommended content from new creators you haven't discovered yet. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. You can easily share a Threads post to your Instagram story, or share your post as a link on any other platform you choose.
Tune Out the Noise
We built Threads with tools to enable positive, productive conversations. You can control who can mention you or reply to you within Threads. Like on Instagram, you can add hidden words to filter out replies to your threads that contain specific words. You can unfollow, block, restrict or report a profile on Threads by tapping the three-dot menu, and any accounts you've blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads.
As with all our products, we're taking safety seriously, and we'll enforce Instagram's Community Guidelines on content and interactions in the app. Since 2016 we've invested more than $16 billion in building up the teams and technologies needed to protect our users, and we remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and investments to protect our community.
Compatible with Interoperable Networks
Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress - allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today. Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.
We're committed to giving you more control over your audience on Threads - our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service. Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks. If you have a public profile on Threads, this means your posts would be accessible from other apps, allowing you to reach new people with no added effort. If you have a private profile, you'd be able to approve users on Threads who want to follow you and interact with your content, similar to your experience on Instagram.
The benefits of open social networking protocols go well beyond the ways people can follow each other. Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation. Each compatible app can set its own community standards and content moderation policies, meaning people have the freedom to choose spaces that align with their values. We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms.
Threads is Meta's first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol - we hope that by joining this fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services, Threads will help people find their community, no matter what app they use.
What's Next
We're rolling out Threads today in more than 100 countries for iOS and Android, and people in those countries can download the app from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
In addition to working toward making Threads compatible with the ActivityPub protocol, soon we'll be adding a number of new features to help you continue to discover threads and creators you're interested in, including improved recommendations in feed and a more robust search function that makes it easier to follow topics and trends in real time.
We're excited to hear your feedback as we work to build new features and introduce fun new ways to connect on the app.
[Editor's note: Threads is currently not available in the EU due to Meta waiting for upcoming privacy legislation from the union.]
Source:
Threads
Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos. Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas. Just like on Instagram, with Threads you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests - including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond. And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls.
It's easy to get started with Threads: simply use your Instagram account to log in. Your Instagram username and verification will carry over, with the option to customize your profile specifically for Threads.
Everyone who is under 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private profile when they join Threads. You can choose to follow the same accounts you do on Instagram, and find more people who care about the same things you do. The core accessibility features available on Instagram today, such as screen reader support and AI-generated image descriptions, are also enabled on Threads.
Your feed on Threads includes threads posted by people you follow, and recommended content from new creators you haven't discovered yet. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. You can easily share a Threads post to your Instagram story, or share your post as a link on any other platform you choose.
Tune Out the Noise
We built Threads with tools to enable positive, productive conversations. You can control who can mention you or reply to you within Threads. Like on Instagram, you can add hidden words to filter out replies to your threads that contain specific words. You can unfollow, block, restrict or report a profile on Threads by tapping the three-dot menu, and any accounts you've blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads.
As with all our products, we're taking safety seriously, and we'll enforce Instagram's Community Guidelines on content and interactions in the app. Since 2016 we've invested more than $16 billion in building up the teams and technologies needed to protect our users, and we remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and investments to protect our community.
Compatible with Interoperable Networks
Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress - allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today. Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.
We're committed to giving you more control over your audience on Threads - our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service. Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks. If you have a public profile on Threads, this means your posts would be accessible from other apps, allowing you to reach new people with no added effort. If you have a private profile, you'd be able to approve users on Threads who want to follow you and interact with your content, similar to your experience on Instagram.
The benefits of open social networking protocols go well beyond the ways people can follow each other. Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation. Each compatible app can set its own community standards and content moderation policies, meaning people have the freedom to choose spaces that align with their values. We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms.
Threads is Meta's first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol - we hope that by joining this fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services, Threads will help people find their community, no matter what app they use.
What's Next
We're rolling out Threads today in more than 100 countries for iOS and Android, and people in those countries can download the app from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
In addition to working toward making Threads compatible with the ActivityPub protocol, soon we'll be adding a number of new features to help you continue to discover threads and creators you're interested in, including improved recommendations in feed and a more robust search function that makes it easier to follow topics and trends in real time.
We're excited to hear your feedback as we work to build new features and introduce fun new ways to connect on the app.
[Editor's note: Threads is currently not available in the EU due to Meta waiting for upcoming privacy legislation from the union.]
75 Comments on Meta Launches Threads to Take on Twitter
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty[37][38]
Again, try to pull away from the singular event, and zoom out, I have no interest going into the cesspool with you :)
Its just so ironic you are billing Threads as an echo chamber when Twitter has become exactly that. Musk, the "free speech absolutist" outright bans people that he doesn't agree with. How is that not already the echo chamber you are rallying against?
btw I haven't come across any noticeable bans lately and I'm an avid Twitter user.
And as a result you're positing an example that supports that psychology: 'Twitter is a good place'. Additionally, your comparison to other historical times is completely off and lacks context.
Step outside your bubble.
The only good discussions I've seen on Twitter were super-long chains of X/20 posts where a complete idea could actually be discussed. But there's numerous problems with that: post chains are edited one-at-a-time, replied one-at-a-time, linked one at a time. Replies are all short-form rather than long form (or really medium form: a 500 character essay from grade school would need 3 or 4 Tweets just to cover an elementary subject).
What Twitter, and Threads, are and will be is entertainment. Short form comments to make people think they're participating but really I'm just tuning out most comments because no one has the ability to say anything more than a copy/pasted meme all the time.
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I used 880 characters above the line. This "post" would have taken up 4 tweets. I know I'm verbose but I don't think I could cut the above concept much further down.
nypost.com/2023/04/11/twitter-files-journalist-matt-taibbi-shadow-banned-by-elon-musk/
Elon Musk is so short-sighted with his crap, he can't even keep straight his allies from his foes. Matt Taibbi, the guy pushing that false narrative of collusion and helping Elon Musk spread that bullcrap about "Twitter files" was just colluded off of the platform he was defending.
There's one rule of Twitter and one rule only: worship Elon Musk, or get off. That's why Threads got so many signups in the past few hours. I hate Zuckerberg as much as the next guy, but Twitter itself has proven to be untrustworthy (and incredibly bankrupt, as they are unable to pay Google bills last month leading to the technical glitches last weekend).
Of course, I'm pushing for the greater Fediverse / Mastodon / Lemmy and hoping they succeed. But I recognize that Threads is coming in here at a time where other social media sites (Reddit, StackOverflow, and Twitter) are having significant issues. Zuckerberg's sense of timing and business is excellent, he knows the opportunity and is going for it. With all the high-profile shadowbans off of Twitter, the chilling effect has already taken hold and everyone wants to get off.Plainsite, Mark Tabbi, ElonJet.
If Elon Musk doesn't like you, you instantly get banned. In fact, the rules change about a week before the banning to give cover over the decision. Its amateur hour in terms of dictatorships, its so obvious what Musk is trying to do and he's so bad at it...
Given how many high-profile bans (and shadowbans) there have been on Twitter, all I can say is that you don't follow Twitter news as much as you think you do.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence that every single moderation team on the internet outside of Twitter agrees exactly with all the political leanings of Google, Walmart, Microsoft, and Amazon. And explicitly doesn't even allow discussion of ideas they disagree with. Just coincidence.
Edit: it's hilarious to see people actually trying to convince anyone that Elon Musk is "the real censor!" lmao. He's banned random people who pissed him off, yes, but he hasn't done anything close to a platform-wide ban on discussions he disagrees with. The same is not true on reddit, the TPU forums, facebook, etc. Elon Musk is (generally) letting people speak freely, and that has made every censorship-obsessed billionaire and their army of drones absolutely livid. The moderation style of almost literally every other discussion platform is "How dare you discuss covid, pronouns, trans ideology, the russia/ukraine conflict, or any of about a hundred other issues unless you agree exactly with us. Banned."
Imagine having ideas so completely untenable that you literally can't allow people to discuss them at all, unless they're exactly parroting something from an NBC newscast or a Walmart press release. Lmao.
Twitter today is literally censorship as a service. Turkey, India, etc. etc. Every government order of censorship Elon Musk has 100% complied with.
Twitter in 2021 did NOT comply with government requests of censorship (or at least, didn't comply with all of them. I think it was like 50%ish?) . This 100% compliance with the censors is a new thing starting in 2022 after the Elon Musk purchase.
www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/27/twitter-has-complied-with-almost-every-government-request-for-censorship-since-musk-took-over-report-finds/?sh=7f0266af24ea
Twitter is quickly becoming "Free Speech for Pro-Musk, Pro-Turkey, Pro-India, Pro-China" only. There's a pattern with the bans that's quite disturbing.
They've gone from 50% compliance with censorship to 100% compliance.
Looks like I misremembered: they've gone from 50% compliance to 80% compliance. Either way, we can measure how bad its gotten.
Not defending Musk or anything here but if you continue defying court orders you would be shut down in most places.
In 2022 after the Elon Musk takeover, they complied and let Turkey censor a number of people to solidify Erdogan election chances. EDIT: With the pattern continuing in China and India, its clear that Twitter is no longer an advocate for free speech.
The blurred lines between legitimate news sources and made up crap on social media has proven just how powerful disinformation is (sadly).
As much as I love to tell people to think with their head and make informed decisions....it's just not enough.
There has to be REAL change and accountability with Federal law pertaining to disinformation and media gate keepers. Period.
I think they're just complying with everyone instead of thinking about what is, or isn't, legal or moral anymore. Participating in the Chinese censorship of the various genocides going on in China is... immoral and should be resisted.
Note: Saudi Arabia continues to hold a stake in Twitter and they may be calling some of the shots. (Elon Musk let them keep their shares in Twitter, and likely gave them more influence). I don't think this all traces back to Elon, but the company he's chosen is quite suspect.