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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Instagram’s new Twitter competitor, Threads, is off to a rocket start. Mark Zuckerberg announced 30 million activated profiles, while internal data shows over 95 million posts and 190 million likes in less than one day,

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[-] ForgetReddit@lemmy.world 123 points 1 year ago
  1. Everyone move to Threads

  2. Elon is forced to sell Twitter for $50k

  3. Everyone leave Threads and go back to Twitter

[-] VisualCicada@lemmy.ml 38 points 1 year ago

I'm lowkey pumped about Threads even though I'll never use it because of the prospect of Elon having to sell cheap

[-] Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Or

  1. Everyone move to Threads
  2. Elon is forced to sell Twitter for $50k
  3. Everyone leave Threads and go to BlueSky
[-] kr0n@lemmy.ml 48 points 1 year ago

A new social network from Meta, without any privacy, with algorithms to show us what they want?

No, thanks. I love Mastodon.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I really don't get it. I understand people staying on Twitter because that's sunk cost. They don't want to lose their notoriety. But what the hell is the point of using Threads? Everything I've read about it makes it sound awful.

This article said all I needed to know:

Imagine an active comment section on an Instagram post on someone you follow. Not great, eh?

Now imagine that same comment section, make it infinitely long, AND give users the ability to include images, videos, and links that you can’t avoid seeing.

That’s Threads.

[-] DrQuint@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

What's there to not get. To you, the word "Privacy" is a concern. To most people, it's "that shit that never bothered me, why care?".

You're here, on this platform, you're already not most people.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It's not just the privacy though, I get that a lot of people don't care about that. It's that it sounds like a total dogshit of a social media platform.

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[-] kr0n@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Great definition. 🔝

[-] Arotrios@kbin.social 41 points 1 year ago

Am I the only one who finds those numbers abnormally high? The sourcing also seems suspect - going through the verge posts, they're just quoting internal numbers with no sourcing.

Here's my question - it says activated profiles, not 30 million signups. If a large chunk of those are Insta and FB users, it seems more than likely that a lot of those profiles could be activated internally (I work with databases, this could be as easy as changing a 0 to 1 in a field in the profile table if they've got it integrated right). I'm also curious as to the content of the 95 million posts - how many of those are an automated "Hi I'm on threads!" message when the profile starts up?

That being said, I'm not curious nor stupid enough to actually signup and let them Zuck my data, but this smacks of astroturfing.

[-] jalda@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

Instagram has more than 2 billion active users, and each (non-EU) Instagram user can conveniently login Threads just pressing a button. If they're fudging the numbers, activating only 1.5% of their potential userbase seems odd. Why not activating hundreds of millions of accounts?

As for the posts, an average of 3.2 posts/users for just the first day sounds reasonable to me.

[-] Perry@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Meta has several billion active users across their platforms. 30M is nothing to them.

Also don’t forget that we’re talking about a microblog, so it will inherently generate a large amount of individual posts, much more so than e.g Instagram. The quality is however likely very low initially and a lot of users are probably just trying out the current talk of the day.

I do suspect that Threads will probably grow to a few hundred million users before the end of the year; anything less would probably be regarded as a colossal failure for Meta.

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[-] Rubric@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

I’ve only kept my Twitter because for some reason Britney Spears follows me. I would have gotten rid of it a long time ago before now. I have no interest in Threads. If people like it, great, it’s just not for me.

[-] Myrbolg@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Hhaa, what do you post about?

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Tweet me baby, one more time.

[-] briongloid@aussie.zone 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The former Prime Minister of my country follows me on twitter as well

Edit: also an actor from Scrubs, but not one of the main ones

[-] mobiuscoffee@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

It's The Todd isn't it?

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[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

If people like it, great, it’s just not for me.

I've gotta say, it's very refreshing to see this attitude, since the main attitude I've seen here is "This is popular with normies who listen to bad music and like dumb celebrities, therefore it's bad and terrible and I hate it!"

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[-] Stylus2650@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Well tell Brittany where she can find you on the next platform! 😁

[-] Klinker@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Euro here, still no sign of any threads

[-] Vorticity@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

With their privacy policies they probably can't launch in Europe without getting fined into oblivion.

[-] Skaryon@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I'm sure they'll come around to making it work with our laws. Too big a market to miss entirely

[-] Hubi@feddit.de 26 points 1 year ago

And that's a good thing

[-] Raildrake@vlemmy.net 4 points 1 year ago

I haven't been following anything regarding Threads so I assumed it was out here in Europe too, it's actually a relief that it isn't. Won't stay long like this, but it's something.

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[-] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

See, this is why capitalism trends toward monopolies.

A small developer could create the exact same app down to the semicolon, but wouldn't get even a quarter of the traffic on release.

But because it's Meta (and somehow despite their awful record of privacy violations), the app gets over 30 million signups.

The internet is controlled by 4 companies and there's nothing we can do about it.

[-] aidan@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Except it is nowhere near a monopoly in the social media space. There are so many general options, and specific forums for topics, etc. That's not even to mention the fact that just because something doesn't provide the exact same service doesn't mean it's not a competitor. In person communication, VoIP, etc are also competitors to social media.

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[-] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately that is the power of marketing, an already established user base and a low barrier of entry. People who have Instagram accounts already have a Threads account, and people who have a Facebook account already have an Instagram account. It's much easier to get them to try than it is to get people to sign up for any Fediverse instance.

I just hope that once it opens to the Fediverse, people who are already there can feel more comfortable to make the leap and drop Meta. Because Meta is not going to let the users drive the experience anyway.

[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Like millions of others I went to check it out because the startup of a new social network is exciting.

It sucks. Mostly because of Instagram migration all of the spam and grift is there on day 1.

There's also this fake "positivity" vibe that they're trying to promote that is so fake and shallow with literally zero backup how would it be encouraged or grown despite "be positive" sort of sham messages.

Major disappointment. It literally does nothing new.

[-] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

25 million spambots, 5 million users.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Or...

It is actually fairly popular. I'm sure there are more than a few bots, but a pretty huge chunk of people I actually know have been active on it.

[-] Phanatik@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah that fake positivity came from Instagram. It's like staring at an alternate reality.

[-] regulatorg@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago

As much as I dislike all the recent twitter changes, this gives Meta even more of a monopoly on social media networks

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[-] Nero@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's not sign ups "activated profiles". It's people using their same insta account to use Threads.

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[-] needtoknowbasisonly@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Another article is claiming it's up to 44 million....

"Instagram could be a primary driver of Threads’ adoption. This is due to a badge assigned underneath your Instagram profile picture with a number. This number denotes your user number on Threads. These are thought to be chronological, with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg holding the coveted “1” badge.

Dexerto has observed that the user numbers have now surpassed 44 million at the time of writing, and it’s likely that as more regions find that the app has launched, this number will continue to rise."

[-] Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Whenever I hear Threads I can only think of this nightmare fuel

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/

[-] Chickenstalker@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Bots. Lots and lots of bots.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

B̷̞̆o̶͙̎t̴͓̀s̷̻͝ ̶͈̓f̶̟͛o̴̢͋r̷͉̆ ̵͇̕t̴̥̄ȟ̸͍ė̴̻ ̵̱̈B̶̝͘ò̸̠t̶̽ͅ ̷̧͑Ǧ̴͉o̴̦̎d̸̮͊

[-] dekatron@lemmy.fmhy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

First it's the number of sign ups, then it's the posts and likes, then it's the number of eyeballs grabbed and the ad revenue. This kind of metric chasing that these platforms encourage is one of the reasons why they become so toxic.

[-] muftiboy@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

it's millions of bot posts. and I'm sure Fuckerberg appreciates y'all spreading his pathetic PR for free and upvoting this shit

[-] glockenspiel@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don’t think it’s millions of bots, unless you are using that term derogatorily like some use “NPC.”

The media are pushing Threads with every fiber of their being. Tech-adjacent sites like TheVerge are absolutely unuseable right now because like 9/10 stories on their page are about how great Threads is and everyone should go to Threads and “hey, follow me on Threads.”

People need to acknowledge modern journalists/reporters/staff writers for what they are: influencers. That’s why they love Twitter. That’s why they love Threads. That’s why they demand corpo algorithms to boost their content and force it upon other people.

And that’s why they repeat a lie about the fediverse so insistently: that it is hard to get into. It is so hard to pick one of the top 2 largest sites and give them a username, password, and sometimes an email address. Journalists/writers generally don’t like Mastodon because it doesn’t force anything onto users. That means they have to organically earn a following.

But Meta will just give it to them by forcing users to see their posts.

[-] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

I hardly believe anyone here will be jumping ship, after all if you're here, you're not looking for masses..

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[-] carp969@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

As the numbers get higher, my interest gets less and less.

A good example of the usefulness of social media platforms is tiktok. To start with it was a pointless platform, full of the young and beautiful dancing to shit music. It's still has plenty of that, but if you use the search function it has so reasonable content.

But threads can't be useful yet as nobody has figured out the application yet. Give it six months it might be okay but not yet.

[-] ohlaph@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

People are annoyed at the changes and decrease in content quality. It makes Instagram in a healthy market to destroy Twitter.

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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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