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I lost interest in Threads once their product guy said news is not a priority for them. One of the main reasons I use Twitter to catch up on world events from t

I lost interest in Threads once their product guy said news is not a priority for them. One of the main reasons I use Twitter to catch up on world events from trustworthy sources. Also earthquakes. Living in the California, I'm actually very impressed with Twitter's trending searches. I can always find few people tweeting about earthquake within 10seconds of an earthquake.

threeseed 3y ago
If you listen to Zuckerberg's interview with Alex Heath it's clear what they meant. They are interested in breaking news, sports etc. They are just trying to avoid the platform turning into the polarising mess that Twitter is right now. And so they've been trying to position the app as more holistic than just politics and news. Hashtags and trending searches are next on their roadmap. And I suspect that there is some technical work on their part to upgrade the underlying Instagram platform to support more real-time updates to the feed. Once that happens news will inevitably become a bigger part of Threads.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  Threads is dead at this point realistically
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Not according to Zuckerberg [1]. He was happy with DAU numbers and planned to commit to the app long-term. Threads is contributing a huge amount of behavioural data to Instagram ad profiles so it may never need to run ads in order to provide significant value to the company. That's going to place X at a disadvantage over the long term. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23889057/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ai-elon-musk-threads-quest-interview-decoder https://www.theverge.com/23889057/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ai-el...
    - TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
      Instagram is also embedding Threads posts directly, with a link to open them in the app. I've gotten a few prompts while using Instagram to remind me to open Threads. However, every time I open the app it's basically a ghost town. I personally don't know anyone using it, so I just see a bunch of brand and celebrity posts. Threads feels more like a platform for brands than for regular people.
      - Gigachad 3y ago
        Almost everyone I know is using Bluesky now. I’ve yet to see anyone using threads.
        vsnf 3y ago
        Must be nice to live in a bubble where Bluesky isn't gated behind a waitlist and your entire circle can move wholesale with ease.
        Gigachad 3y ago
        Access to invite codes is abundant in the furry community. Can just ask anyone you know for one.
        robbie-c 3y ago
        Network effects. Do you think Facebook would have ever taken off back in the 2000s if everyone had to get a code from a furry to join?
        Gigachad 3y ago
        From memory Facebook was gatekept behind needing to be a university student.
        rchaud 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pfist 3y ago
  I like the UI design of Threads and I’m trying to enjoy the app, but it keeps flooding my feed with desperate, attention-seeking women in suggestive clothing and positions. I never have this problem on X.
  - somedude895 3y ago
    I don‘t use Instagram often, but I recently met a girl irl who wanted to connect. I open the search in the app and it instantly recommends exclusively girls showing off their bodies, even though I only follow friends otherwise. It was quite embarrassing.
    - xena 3y ago
      Then you probably want mastodon. Chronological feeds are the only option there!
    - te_chris 3y ago
      Stop looking at thirsty girls on the gram then. In my experience it shows you more of what you look at.
      - JD557 3y ago
        As a very casual Instagram user, I had a similar experience to the parent comment (not so much now). From what I can tell, this is the way Instagram recommendations treat cold start users. It was only when I started liking stuff that they went away.
      - dividedbyzero 3y ago
        It's showing me a lot of luxury handbag influencers that obviously target a very different demographic. I'm absolutely sure I never looked for anything like that (I follow mostly science/scientist accounts and comics and I'm male). I also keep getting ads for commercial pilot insurance and I'm definitely not in that demographic either. Instagram's recommendation model seems to work well if you fit a common categorization well (women interested in luxury handbags perhaps), and utterly break down when you don't. I'm a software engineer, I don't need specialty carts to move Boeing aircraft engines.
- andreygrehov 3y ago
  > They are just trying to avoid the platform turning into the polarising mess that Twitter is right now. What if that is the actual state of the country and Twitter is just reflecting it?
  - goatlover 3y ago
    And what if Twitter is partly causing it (along with other media).
    - malermeister 3y ago
      It's both, in a feedback loop from hell.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      You can also go the other way. There's always going to be the possibility of a chicken/egg type question, but it seems clear that a lot of the insanity and division started to happen about the time people started trying to control (and started caring so much about) what other people say and think. It just feels like there was this sudden flip of a switch where suddenly there was this idea that if you control 'the message', you can control what people think, and a certain group of people vigorously pursued this. It's not hard to see how this is going to drive people into deeply divided groups. You immediately end up with an in-group and an out-group, both with good reason to avoid the other. And then in this division, both groups characterization of the other drifts further and further from reality, further cementing such divisions. This site [1] demonstrating the scale of the perception gap among various groups is quite telling. I don't think it was like this, at all, not that long ago. [1] - https://perceptiongap.us/ https://perceptiongap.us/
      - nonrandomstring 3y ago
        > It just feels like there was this sudden flip of a switch where suddenly there was this idea that if you control 'the message', you can control what people think, and a certain group of people vigorously pursued this. I locate this moment quite precisely. It was when either Richard Perle or Donald Rumsfeld responded to a journalist's live TV question about 'the reality' in Iraq II, and said "We control reality". That was when narrative paradigm took a dark turn in the West and I see the PNAC as taking internal psyops to a whole new, overt level. All politicians _know_ this, but you never _say it_ !! Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and company publicly burned the precious veneer of good faith. They didn't just want to construct the Iraq War, they needed to rub our noses in the blatant cheek of it. That was the birth of "post truth" for me. After that it naturally followed that every organisation, business, or individual could legitimately construct their own "narrative reality" through social media or whatever, without any regard for facts.
- sph 3y ago
  They want to avoid recreating the polarising mess that is Twitter... by copying Twitter wholesale?
- basisword 3y ago
  >> They are interested in breaking news, sports etc. They are just trying to avoid the platform turning into the polarising mess that Twitter is right now. They're right to do this too. I enjoyed Threads drama free for a few days. The first time I saw a post from a journalist - it was drama. Complaining about how important news is and how it's morally wrong of Meta to not be prioritising it. So obviously self-serving too.
  - bagels 3y ago
    The irony, people whine when shown rage bait, people whine when not shown rage bait.
- is_true 3y ago
  I don't think people at Meta think that "polarizing" is bad, is an easy way to drive engagement
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    It’s at least a plausible market opportunity—a way to differentiate themselves from Twitter and capitalize on the people who are repulsed by Twitter’s rage peddling (although the rage peddling cooled down a bit post-acquisition, especially with Community Notes, but platform culture doesn’t change overnight even if the algos and features improve slightly).
    - is_true 3y ago
      I think polarization is something that changes between societies, I now live in a society that is polarized by the politicians themselves and for sure you see a lot of interactions in posts about politics.
grishka 3y ago
> news is not a priority for them Huh? That's a strange requirement. Somehow every social media platform eventually devolves into having news, meme pages and other faceless inhuman entities you seemingly can't escape. I, for one, desperately want the opposite — a platform where organizations of any kind are not welcome. Only people and their personal accounts. The fediverse is kinda like that. Yes, BBC does have their own Mastodon server, but they don't have many followers and there are no algorithms to force-feed you out-of-network content.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  News is not as monetizable as something short-form such as Reels
- simongray 3y ago
  Mastodon is quite different. It really filters a lot of noise away (e.g. Xwitter always has ~20 pointless meme gif comments below every viral post) and it self-selects what I would consider interesting people. The algorithm-centred platforms tend to congregate around celebrities/influencers over time, while Mastodon is much more egalitarian and people-focused.
  - cheschire 3y ago
    With some amount of curation, sure. I’ve recently started getting into mastodon and all I’ve seen across the dozens of sites are way more related to current political events than anything else.
    - simongray 3y ago
      I recommend installing the extension Streetpass for Mastodon to build up your followed accounts organically across time. A surprising number of interesting articles submitted to HN link back to the author's Mastodon account. (Graze for Mastodon is another useful extension)
      - 3y ago
ulfw 3y ago
My Threads has turned into an instagram copy. Half the posts are pictures, which, is neat. But I prefer the instagram interface. And as usual Meta doesn't give a f about iPads, so threads (like instagram) looks like crap running on it.
dghughes 3y ago
Hypocritical of Zuck now show news after having a major snit fit when here in Canada he was asked to support news organizations he chose not to and just block news.
- SpecialistK 3y ago
  > he was asked to support news organizations I think that's a pretty disingenuous way of putting it. Meta and Google were told that by law they would need to pay money to /link/ to news content. Everyone else pays Meta and Google to run ads or does SEO, and now Meta has to pay the people they're linking to (but only if its news). It's completely back-asswords and I support their protest. "Hey McDonalds, when this one group orders a cheeseburger you have to give them money instead of them paying you" "Okay, we won't serve those people cheeseburgers." Same situation, just as ridiculous.
faizmokh 3y ago
I feel like the problem with Threads is the direct integrations with Instagram. There's so many self-indulgent posts from IG influencers earlier on it becomes terrible experience to doom scroll. By the time they released a separate "Following" tab, people have lost their interest in using it.

threeseed 3y ago

If you listen to Zuckerberg's interview with Alex Heath it's clear what they meant. They are interested in breaking news, sports etc. They are just trying to avoid the platform turning into the polarising mess that Twitter is right now. And so they've been trying to position the app as more holistic than just politics and news. Hashtags and trending searches are next on their roadmap. And I suspect that there is some technical work on their part to upgrade the underlying Instagram platform to support more real-time updates to the feed. Once that happens news will inevitably become a bigger part of Threads.

DoesntMatter22 3y ago
Threads is dead at this point realistically
- threeseed 3y ago
  Not according to Zuckerberg [1]. He was happy with DAU numbers and planned to commit to the app long-term. Threads is contributing a huge amount of behavioural data to Instagram ad profiles so it may never need to run ads in order to provide significant value to the company. That's going to place X at a disadvantage over the long term. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23889057/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ai-elon-musk-threads-quest-interview-decoder https://www.theverge.com/23889057/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ai-el...
  - TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
    Instagram is also embedding Threads posts directly, with a link to open them in the app. I've gotten a few prompts while using Instagram to remind me to open Threads. However, every time I open the app it's basically a ghost town. I personally don't know anyone using it, so I just see a bunch of brand and celebrity posts. Threads feels more like a platform for brands than for regular people.
    - Gigachad 3y ago
      Almost everyone I know is using Bluesky now. I’ve yet to see anyone using threads.
      - vsnf 3y ago
        Must be nice to live in a bubble where Bluesky isn't gated behind a waitlist and your entire circle can move wholesale with ease.
        Gigachad 3y ago
        Access to invite codes is abundant in the furry community. Can just ask anyone you know for one.
        robbie-c 3y ago
        Network effects. Do you think Facebook would have ever taken off back in the 2000s if everyone had to get a code from a furry to join?
        Gigachad 3y ago
        From memory Facebook was gatekept behind needing to be a university student.
        rchaud 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pfist 3y ago
I like the UI design of Threads and I’m trying to enjoy the app, but it keeps flooding my feed with desperate, attention-seeking women in suggestive clothing and positions. I never have this problem on X.
- somedude895 3y ago
  I don‘t use Instagram often, but I recently met a girl irl who wanted to connect. I open the search in the app and it instantly recommends exclusively girls showing off their bodies, even though I only follow friends otherwise. It was quite embarrassing.
  - xena 3y ago
    Then you probably want mastodon. Chronological feeds are the only option there!
  - te_chris 3y ago
    Stop looking at thirsty girls on the gram then. In my experience it shows you more of what you look at.
    - JD557 3y ago
      As a very casual Instagram user, I had a similar experience to the parent comment (not so much now). From what I can tell, this is the way Instagram recommendations treat cold start users. It was only when I started liking stuff that they went away.
    - dividedbyzero 3y ago
      It's showing me a lot of luxury handbag influencers that obviously target a very different demographic. I'm absolutely sure I never looked for anything like that (I follow mostly science/scientist accounts and comics and I'm male). I also keep getting ads for commercial pilot insurance and I'm definitely not in that demographic either. Instagram's recommendation model seems to work well if you fit a common categorization well (women interested in luxury handbags perhaps), and utterly break down when you don't. I'm a software engineer, I don't need specialty carts to move Boeing aircraft engines.
andreygrehov 3y ago
> They are just trying to avoid the platform turning into the polarising mess that Twitter is right now. What if that is the actual state of the country and Twitter is just reflecting it?
- goatlover 3y ago
  And what if Twitter is partly causing it (along with other media).
  - malermeister 3y ago
    It's both, in a feedback loop from hell.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    You can also go the other way. There's always going to be the possibility of a chicken/egg type question, but it seems clear that a lot of the insanity and division started to happen about the time people started trying to control (and started caring so much about) what other people say and think. It just feels like there was this sudden flip of a switch where suddenly there was this idea that if you control 'the message', you can control what people think, and a certain group of people vigorously pursued this. It's not hard to see how this is going to drive people into deeply divided groups. You immediately end up with an in-group and an out-group, both with good reason to avoid the other. And then in this division, both groups characterization of the other drifts further and further from reality, further cementing such divisions. This site [1] demonstrating the scale of the perception gap among various groups is quite telling. I don't think it was like this, at all, not that long ago. [1] - https://perceptiongap.us/ https://perceptiongap.us/
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      > It just feels like there was this sudden flip of a switch where suddenly there was this idea that if you control 'the message', you can control what people think, and a certain group of people vigorously pursued this. I locate this moment quite precisely. It was when either Richard Perle or Donald Rumsfeld responded to a journalist's live TV question about 'the reality' in Iraq II, and said "We control reality". That was when narrative paradigm took a dark turn in the West and I see the PNAC as taking internal psyops to a whole new, overt level. All politicians _know_ this, but you never _say it_ !! Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and company publicly burned the precious veneer of good faith. They didn't just want to construct the Iraq War, they needed to rub our noses in the blatant cheek of it. That was the birth of "post truth" for me. After that it naturally followed that every organisation, business, or individual could legitimately construct their own "narrative reality" through social media or whatever, without any regard for facts.
sph 3y ago
They want to avoid recreating the polarising mess that is Twitter... by copying Twitter wholesale?
basisword 3y ago
>> They are interested in breaking news, sports etc. They are just trying to avoid the platform turning into the polarising mess that Twitter is right now. They're right to do this too. I enjoyed Threads drama free for a few days. The first time I saw a post from a journalist - it was drama. Complaining about how important news is and how it's morally wrong of Meta to not be prioritising it. So obviously self-serving too.
- bagels 3y ago
  The irony, people whine when shown rage bait, people whine when not shown rage bait.
is_true 3y ago
I don't think people at Meta think that "polarizing" is bad, is an easy way to drive engagement
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  It’s at least a plausible market opportunity—a way to differentiate themselves from Twitter and capitalize on the people who are repulsed by Twitter’s rage peddling (although the rage peddling cooled down a bit post-acquisition, especially with Community Notes, but platform culture doesn’t change overnight even if the algos and features improve slightly).
  - is_true 3y ago
    I think polarization is something that changes between societies, I now live in a society that is polarized by the politicians themselves and for sure you see a lot of interactions in posts about politics.

grishka 3y ago

> news is not a priority for them Huh? That's a strange requirement. Somehow every social media platform eventually devolves into having news, meme pages and other faceless inhuman entities you seemingly can't escape. I, for one, desperately want the opposite — a platform where organizations of any kind are not welcome. Only people and their personal accounts. The fediverse is kinda like that. Yes, BBC does have their own Mastodon server, but they don't have many followers and there are no algorithms to force-feed you out-of-network content.

hackernewds 3y ago
News is not as monetizable as something short-form such as Reels
simongray 3y ago
Mastodon is quite different. It really filters a lot of noise away (e.g. Xwitter always has ~20 pointless meme gif comments below every viral post) and it self-selects what I would consider interesting people. The algorithm-centred platforms tend to congregate around celebrities/influencers over time, while Mastodon is much more egalitarian and people-focused.
- cheschire 3y ago
  With some amount of curation, sure. I’ve recently started getting into mastodon and all I’ve seen across the dozens of sites are way more related to current political events than anything else.
  - simongray 3y ago
    I recommend installing the extension Streetpass for Mastodon to build up your followed accounts organically across time. A surprising number of interesting articles submitted to HN link back to the author's Mastodon account. (Graze for Mastodon is another useful extension)
    - 3y ago

ulfw 3y ago

My Threads has turned into an instagram copy. Half the posts are pictures, which, is neat. But I prefer the instagram interface. And as usual Meta doesn't give a f about iPads, so threads (like instagram) looks like crap running on it.

dghughes 3y ago

Hypocritical of Zuck now show news after having a major snit fit when here in Canada he was asked to support news organizations he chose not to and just block news.

SpecialistK 3y ago
> he was asked to support news organizations I think that's a pretty disingenuous way of putting it. Meta and Google were told that by law they would need to pay money to /link/ to news content. Everyone else pays Meta and Google to run ads or does SEO, and now Meta has to pay the people they're linking to (but only if its news). It's completely back-asswords and I support their protest. "Hey McDonalds, when this one group orders a cheeseburger you have to give them money instead of them paying you" "Okay, we won't serve those people cheeseburgers." Same situation, just as ridiculous.

faizmokh 3y ago

I feel like the problem with Threads is the direct integrations with Instagram. There's so many self-indulgent posts from IG influencers earlier on it becomes terrible experience to doom scroll. By the time they released a separate "Following" tab, people have lost their interest in using it.