5 ms·

How does it compare to threads?

minimaxir 2y ago
Threads has become worse over time due to a series of anti-user policy decisions (no news/politics) and a very weird Discover algorithm that strongly incentivizes clickbait (and said feed is the default on the app and cannot be changed)
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Does federation work? Or Threads just doesn't federate anything into itself?
  - dawnerd 2y ago
    Its getting there. They just need to allow replying back into the fediverse. But making it all opt in kinda has limited how many people use it. Perhaps that was intentional due to infrastructure needed and potentially overwhelming the fediverse. Or its just their way to say "we tried!"
- GaggiX 2y ago
  Also no porn, since Twitter is the only mainstream platform that allows porn, a real competitor would have to allow porn as well.
  - stackghost 2y ago
    There's lots of porn on Bluesky but it tends to be, uh, niche.
    - GaggiX 2y ago
      I'm talking about Thread, Bluesky does indeed allows porn, that's why many artists are moving from Twitter to Bluesky.
- duxup 2y ago
  > no news/politics I kinda like the IDEA there, but no idea how you separate things like “I’m concerned about my individual rights” from politics? And usually when people say “no politics” they mean “no politics I don’t like “. Still in sympathize with the idea, I want to hear from people about what they’re doing and so forth, not a rehash of the news.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > how you separate things like “I’m concerned about my individual rights” from politics? It's worse than that. You end up with lesbians posting about their girlfriends or small business owners posting a meme about a regulation they have to comply with and then getting blocked for politics if their tribe is the outgroup. What you really need is for people to not be so intolerant of the other tribe being the other tribe.
    - RamenJunkie_ 2y ago
      That should be the norm everywhere but one tribe's entire identity is being intolprant of people and things that ultimately have zero effect on them or anyone.
    - cloverich 2y ago
      But what do you do when intolerance is the thing you're being asked to be tolerant of?
      - sph 2y ago
        Tolerance indeed means tolerating the intolerant as well, otherwise it's just another name for intolerance. It's clear we completely forgot that in our polarised world.
        philistine 2y ago
- forgotoldacc 2y ago
  Threads only fed me straight up celebrity posts, despite having absolutely zero interest in that, when I signed up back when it was new. I can't imagine how much worse it is now.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    So by default it will show you popular accounts which is unsurprisingly celebrities. But you just need to not engage with them and follow the people and topics you are interested in. Once you do the algorithm is TikTok style in its sensitivity i.e. very.
    - esperent 2y ago
      I strongly disagree that if I, a European living in Asia, make a new social networking account it should assume that the things I'm interested in are American celebrities. Which is what happened on Threads. That's a dumb design decision that made me bounce out immediately. A simple, privacy preserving solution: ask me! When I sign up, offer broad categories like art, tech, sports, celebrities etc. don't put everyone into one "probably likes celebrity gossip" box on signup. But it's even worse than that. I already have an Instagram account! They know there that I like art, tech, webcomics, music. I know that's all shared with Threads even if I'd rather it wasn't. But my feed is still filled with celeb trash.
  - coolspot 2y ago
    Fresh twitter account is fed the same: NBA, celebs, funny videos. You have to “dislike”, mute and block to make your timeline show good stuff.
- threeseed 2y ago
  a) Given what happened with X during the election, Meta unquestionably made the right call with Threads. If you want news/politics then simply follow your desired journalists. But forcing it on people who don't want it is not making the world better. It's just allowing bad actors a clear vector on how to make it worse. b) You can switch to the chronological feed which is much better. But as you say you can't make it the default.
  - minimaxir 2y ago
    I'm not sure what you're alluding to regarding what happened on X during the election. If anything 2024 was smoother (very surprisingly) than what happened in 2020 even when Twitter had a Trust and Safety team, mostly because the election was not contested this time.
    - threeseed 2y ago
      Right wing accounts were heavily pushed in the later stages of the election. I manage a number of business X accounts which are publish only and all switched to showing right-wing politicians, pundits and extensive amounts of Elon Musk. I created a new account to check and same thing. Even though when I selected interests I specifically chose non-political topics. For me it was very clear then that whether it's Musk or Zuckerberg no one should have the ability to push political content.
      - minimaxir 2y ago
        It is true that Elon pushed right-wing accounts algorithmically (and is one of the reasons for the exodus to Bluesky), but "no politics ever" as a neutral content moderation stance to counter that factor makes it impossible for a social network to show what's happening now in the world and will make people go elsewhere for the information gap.
        intended 2y ago
        No political content ever is a community growth stance and business strategy. It is the right call, by frikking far. There are a 3-4 horsemen of the apocalypse for online communities. The first two are most definitely politics and religion. If these two topics are allowed on your forum, you are pretty much done. Flame wars, harassment, brigades etc. are going to be the highest you can expect. This is going to force you into high amounts of comment removals and bans. The velocity of action, and anger of your users will mean that you can no longer communicate the rationale for your bans, or maintain transparency. On top of this, you will start to attract groups who will want to use your community for astroturfing, or for targeting. So now you have to deal with the worst kind of adversarial behavior. Getting rid of politics, is just simply better for the product. I will also argue that there should be such product experiments conducted in the economy. We already have a multitude of platforms where we can discuss politics.
tokioyoyo 2y ago
The problem with Threads is, in my opinion, lack of funny people. it won’t be able to attract those users because what they usually post is questionable at best. And without it, it will always feel too sterile. From what I can see, bsky mostly consists of rebels. And since users flock where everyone else is, it will be an uphill battle for them to get Twitter’s userbase.
- sph 2y ago
  There are two types of social media sites: the niche one nobody uses, and the ones @dril posts on.

Threads has become worse over time due to a series of anti-user policy decisions (no news/politics) and a very weird Discover algorithm that strongly incentivizes clickbait (and said feed is the default on the app and cannot be changed)

throwaway290 2y ago
Does federation work? Or Threads just doesn't federate anything into itself?
- dawnerd 2y ago
  Its getting there. They just need to allow replying back into the fediverse. But making it all opt in kinda has limited how many people use it. Perhaps that was intentional due to infrastructure needed and potentially overwhelming the fediverse. Or its just their way to say "we tried!"
GaggiX 2y ago
Also no porn, since Twitter is the only mainstream platform that allows porn, a real competitor would have to allow porn as well.
- stackghost 2y ago
  There's lots of porn on Bluesky but it tends to be, uh, niche.
  - GaggiX 2y ago
    I'm talking about Thread, Bluesky does indeed allows porn, that's why many artists are moving from Twitter to Bluesky.
duxup 2y ago
> no news/politics I kinda like the IDEA there, but no idea how you separate things like “I’m concerned about my individual rights” from politics? And usually when people say “no politics” they mean “no politics I don’t like “. Still in sympathize with the idea, I want to hear from people about what they’re doing and so forth, not a rehash of the news.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > how you separate things like “I’m concerned about my individual rights” from politics? It's worse than that. You end up with lesbians posting about their girlfriends or small business owners posting a meme about a regulation they have to comply with and then getting blocked for politics if their tribe is the outgroup. What you really need is for people to not be so intolerant of the other tribe being the other tribe.
  - RamenJunkie_ 2y ago
    That should be the norm everywhere but one tribe's entire identity is being intolprant of people and things that ultimately have zero effect on them or anyone.
  - cloverich 2y ago
    But what do you do when intolerance is the thing you're being asked to be tolerant of?
    - sph 2y ago
      Tolerance indeed means tolerating the intolerant as well, otherwise it's just another name for intolerance. It's clear we completely forgot that in our polarised world.
      - philistine 2y ago
forgotoldacc 2y ago
Threads only fed me straight up celebrity posts, despite having absolutely zero interest in that, when I signed up back when it was new. I can't imagine how much worse it is now.
- threeseed 2y ago
  So by default it will show you popular accounts which is unsurprisingly celebrities. But you just need to not engage with them and follow the people and topics you are interested in. Once you do the algorithm is TikTok style in its sensitivity i.e. very.
  - esperent 2y ago
    I strongly disagree that if I, a European living in Asia, make a new social networking account it should assume that the things I'm interested in are American celebrities. Which is what happened on Threads. That's a dumb design decision that made me bounce out immediately. A simple, privacy preserving solution: ask me! When I sign up, offer broad categories like art, tech, sports, celebrities etc. don't put everyone into one "probably likes celebrity gossip" box on signup. But it's even worse than that. I already have an Instagram account! They know there that I like art, tech, webcomics, music. I know that's all shared with Threads even if I'd rather it wasn't. But my feed is still filled with celeb trash.
- coolspot 2y ago
  Fresh twitter account is fed the same: NBA, celebs, funny videos. You have to “dislike”, mute and block to make your timeline show good stuff.
threeseed 2y ago
a) Given what happened with X during the election, Meta unquestionably made the right call with Threads. If you want news/politics then simply follow your desired journalists. But forcing it on people who don't want it is not making the world better. It's just allowing bad actors a clear vector on how to make it worse. b) You can switch to the chronological feed which is much better. But as you say you can't make it the default.
- minimaxir 2y ago
  I'm not sure what you're alluding to regarding what happened on X during the election. If anything 2024 was smoother (very surprisingly) than what happened in 2020 even when Twitter had a Trust and Safety team, mostly because the election was not contested this time.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Right wing accounts were heavily pushed in the later stages of the election. I manage a number of business X accounts which are publish only and all switched to showing right-wing politicians, pundits and extensive amounts of Elon Musk. I created a new account to check and same thing. Even though when I selected interests I specifically chose non-political topics. For me it was very clear then that whether it's Musk or Zuckerberg no one should have the ability to push political content.
    - minimaxir 2y ago
      It is true that Elon pushed right-wing accounts algorithmically (and is one of the reasons for the exodus to Bluesky), but "no politics ever" as a neutral content moderation stance to counter that factor makes it impossible for a social network to show what's happening now in the world and will make people go elsewhere for the information gap.
      - intended 2y ago
        No political content ever is a community growth stance and business strategy. It is the right call, by frikking far. There are a 3-4 horsemen of the apocalypse for online communities. The first two are most definitely politics and religion. If these two topics are allowed on your forum, you are pretty much done. Flame wars, harassment, brigades etc. are going to be the highest you can expect. This is going to force you into high amounts of comment removals and bans. The velocity of action, and anger of your users will mean that you can no longer communicate the rationale for your bans, or maintain transparency. On top of this, you will start to attract groups who will want to use your community for astroturfing, or for targeting. So now you have to deal with the worst kind of adversarial behavior. Getting rid of politics, is just simply better for the product. I will also argue that there should be such product experiments conducted in the economy. We already have a multitude of platforms where we can discuss politics.

tokioyoyo 2y ago

The problem with Threads is, in my opinion, lack of funny people. it won’t be able to attract those users because what they usually post is questionable at best. And without it, it will always feel too sterile. From what I can see, bsky mostly consists of rebels. And since users flock where everyone else is, it will be an uphill battle for them to get Twitter’s userbase.

sph 2y ago
There are two types of social media sites: the niche one nobody uses, and the ones @dril posts on.