There are threads in meta

Bluesky: How much is your Threads? How do you expect to feel like interacting with other people on a social app? What’s going on in Meta?

It’s not clear whether Meta can create a place that feels more like a party than something you’ll hang out in.

Bluesky built on a different protocol and got right. The software is not very complex. But the people who use the invitation-only app, for the most part, seem to be having a good time. Its team has wisely slowed the pace of invitations in hopes it can retain the goofy, shitposting ethos that has defined it so far, and that has kept me coming back every day to see what people are talking about.

The challenge for Meta is that it’s not clear to what extent the vibe on Threads will be anything it can control. There is clearly huge anticipation for the app in the media, which has covered every twist and turn of its planned launch obsessively. But you cannot build a social network out of reporters alone. The Threads debut roster of users are impressive but will only stick with them as long as they find an audience for their posts.

A Conversation With Aamir Mosseri About Threads: The Rise Of Threads And How It Probing Makes Elon Musk Look Like He Did

“It’s not nearly as hard to get a bunch of people to try something as it is to build something a bunch of people want to keep using over time,” Mosseri said.

And if nothing else, Threads seems likely to annoy Elon Musk into making even worse mistakes than he has so far. I bet he will challenge Mosseri to a martial arts fight.

Our hope is that Threads will be a safe and friendly place to discuss issues. Mosseri told me and Kevin in an interview Wednesday afternoon that they were particularly focused on creators. (The full conversation is included in a special episode of Hard Fork that drops tomorrow.)

The early hours of Threads have been cheerful and light on drama. But that’s what you would expect from a user base that consists primarily of huge celebrities, influencers, and Instagram employees.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/5/23785194/meta-threads-twitter-social-media-moderation-adam-mosseri

Where are we going with Threads? When Meta is going to launch a product in the EU, and what will it take to make it work?

“That’s just going to take a while, unfortunately — and I’m particularly frustrated about this point, because I’ve been living outside of the US for a year now,” said Mosseri, who has been working from London. I have been talking to my team about not launching things in other countries. … But in this case, it was either we wait on the EU, or delay the launch by many, many many months. I worried that our window would close because timing is important.

Meta has informed Ireland’s Data Privacy Commission that it has no plans yet to launch Threads in the 27-nation bloc, commission spokesman Graham Doyle said. The Irish watchdog is Meta’s main privacy regulator for the EU because the company’s regional headquarters is based in Dublin.

Where’s the money in all this for Meta? When Meta launches a new product, it will likely be devoid of advertisements, as the company explores whether or not it can attract enough users to make a meaningful business opportunity. Mosseri said that they were not focused on it at the moment.

For now, Threads only shows posts from its own server, Mosseri said, and everything will be governed by Instagram’s existing community standards. The ActivityPub allows services like Threads to block certain types of content before they make it onto the app. He believes that this will keep some of the worst problems in moderation under control.

The Power of Twitter: The New Feature: Adding a Quote-Tweet to Twitter 2.0? Is It Necessary?

“There definitely are trade offs,” Mosseri said. “You’re giving up some control. But there are benefits. Over time, I believe it will be a more compelling value proposition that other apps will offer. Over time I think that should attract more creative talent.

As it turns out, Mosseri had his team give that a shot. But everything they tried felt forced, and out of place. The thing that makes Twitter distinctive, Mosseri said, is that replies are given the same visual priority as the original posts. It isn’t uncommon for a social network to cover comments underneath posts. People who are interested in participating in discussions.

By the standards of Twitter 2.0, though, it can feel like a miracle. Would you be interested in reading unlimited posts for free? On a robust network that basically never goes down? That is monitored by a team of moderated content, following community guidelines?

Had Meta launched this app in 2019, it seems safe to say, everyone would have rolled their eyes. Its big new feature is … logging in with Instagram? Come on.

It’s basically a social networking website in 2010 and one nice feature that has just been added is the quote-tweet, which Mastodon avoided adding but I think it’s an essential feature of the modern-day Twitter experience.

It is just a type of social media, like Twitter. You can either add a photo or type your sentences. Are you going to post your stitches? Do you mean strings? Threats? … into the feed. You check your notifications in a tab represented by a heart emoji. You can look for other users. You have the power to reply.

It’s nothing fancy, but it’s already much easier than following people on Mastodon, the original social app built on the ActivityPub protocol. To follow someone, you need to know their server and complete name. On Threads, it’s as easy as typing in their Instagram handle. (I’m @crumbler.) It’s a small thing — but, I suspect, one that could make a big difference.

You have an account on IG, with your handle. You can import your bio and photo with a single click if you like. You can choose to follow anyone on Threads who you already follow on Instagram; as your Instagram follows join Threads, you’ll follow them automatically as well.

The simple feed looks similar to the home timelines on the micro-networking site. The recommended posts from around the network are contained in Threads, a handy way of knowing what is happening on the app. There is no way to look at a feed of users that you follow. (There are also no hashtags, no edit buttons, and no way to search for anything other than user handles.)

I’ve spent the past few hours testing Threads, which will begin to land in app stores just as this newsletter goes out. Like many of the other Twitter rivals that have launched in the past few months, it’s a fairly bare-bones interpretation of a text-based messaging app.

With every passing day, though, that latter statement becomes less true. The past week’s astonishingly foolish decision by Elon Musk to limit free users to viewing 600 posts a day — enough for maybe 20 minutes of scrolling, maybe less — has sent a fresh wave of Twitter users looking for alternatives.

We were then two months into Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, and it was clear that the social network I depended on the most was beginning to break. For my own sake, it felt important that something like Twitter continue to exist — a place to share news, jokes, and other short snippets of writing, in a chatty public place that gave me a sense of the daily conversation.

There are a lot of reasons why Facebook might not be the right choice to run a successor to the social media giant. Over the years there have been many failures associated with moderation of content. Meta should succeed here, and it would have expanded into one of the last frontiers of social networking that it was not already dominant in. Big Tech should usually be less consolidated.

A series of unpopular changes that had turned off users and advertisers has prompted Meta Platforms to directly challenge the platform after it was apparent that the company was geared up to do so.

Meta Launches its Rival App Threads as It Takes Aim At Twitter: Comments on LadBaby, Shakira and Mark Hoyle

The app went live in the U.K. early Wednesday, just hours after it went live in more than 100 other countries. Early celebrity users include chef Gordon Ramsay, the pop star Shakira and Mark Hoyle, better known as the YouTuber LadBaby.

Posts are limited to 500 characters and can include links, photos and videos for up to five minutes.

The new app will allow users to log in with their existing usernames and follow the same accounts. New users will need to set up an account.

Meta emphasized measures to keep users safe, including enforcing Instagram’s community guidelines and providing tools to control who can mention or reply to users.

According to its data privacy disclosure on the App Store, Threads can collect a wide range of personal information including health, financial contacts, browsing and search history, location data, purchases and “sensitive info.”

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey pointed it out in a snarky tweet saying, “All your Threads are belong to us” that included a screenshot of the disclosure. Musk said yes.

Threads can’t be found in the French, German, or Dutch versions on the Apple App Store. The company decided to delay the European launch of the app because ofregulatory uncertainty, but is currently rolling it out to more countries.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/05/1186149939/meta-launches-its-rival-app-threads-as-it-takes-aim-at-twitter

Meta’s Backlash after a Year in the Life: Is It the Right Move? Why the Tech Boundary isn’t

Meta, which has laid off tens of thousands of people in the past year due to a tech industry decline, is in question about whether it’s the right move.

He’s made a series of changes that have triggered backlash, the latest being daily limits on the number of tweets people can view to try to stop unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data. He also is now requiring paid verification for users to access the online dashboard TweetDeck.

Musk’s rivalry with Zuckerberg could end up spilling over into real life. In an online exchange the two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a cage match face-off, though it’s unclear if they will actually make it to the ring.