Threads / threads.net - Instagram's "Twitter Killer".

[Admiral Throbnelius]

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Threads is a social media platform that was created by Mark Zuckerburg's company Meta. Threads began as an offshoot of Instagram until eventually evolving into its own standalone app. It can be seen as a companion to Instagram, and is still heavily integrated into it. Like Bluesky, Threads is mainly marketed as a competitor and alternative to 𝕏 / Twitter, even being described as a "Twitter Killer" by some. Welcome to the Threads thread, how !

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Threads is functionally very similar to Twitter. Many of the features you'd expect to find on Twitter are present in Threads, including quoting and replying to posts. Threads was mainly a mobile app until August 22nd, 2023, when the web application version was launched.

The main distinguishing feature of Threads is its heavy integration into its parent app Instagram. This was mainly through linking a person's Threads and Instagram accounts, whihc by default would share many traits like usernames and profile pictures. Threads also follows the same community guidelines as Instagram.

However, an issue that arose from this heavy integration was that if a user wanted to delete their Threads account, they would also have to delete their Instagram account as well:

This would cause many Instagram users who disliked Threads to warn other users to avoid it as they could risk losing their Instagram account if they decided to delete their Threads account. This issue even delayed the release of the app in Europe as it raised privacy concerns. Threads would remedy this issue in December of 2023, allowing users to disable or delete their Threads accounts without affecting their main Instagram account.

On January 24th, 2024, Threads would introduce advertisements:

Link (Archive)

The Original Threads: Crapchat

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The first iteration of Threads would be released in October of 2019. Rather than being a rival to Twitter like the current iteration, the original form of the app was actually meant to be an alternative to the video sharing app Snapchat, allowing users to message each other by sending messages, pictures and short video clips. It was released as a standalone app for Android and iOS, but was heavily integrated with Instagram, using Instagram's "Close Friends" feature.

Unfortunately, the original Threads app was only downloaded by approximately 220,000 users, which at the time accounted for less than 0.1% of Instagram's monthly active users. Many of its features were eventually implemented in the main Instagram app. The low usage and redundacy eventually lead to its discontinuation in December of 2021. However, this would not be the end of Threads...

Threads 2: Elon Boogaloo

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In October of 2022, Elon Musk would acquire Twitter and rebrand it into 𝕏. Musk's complete overhaul of Twitter's moderation would cause many to believe that he had "ruined" the platform, which led to the development of Twitter alternatives. Mark Zuckerberg's company Meta would be one of these alternative Twitter developers.


Meta's first foray into creating a Twitter alternative would be with a new feature for the Instagram app called Instagram Notes, which was rolled out in December of 2022. Instagram Notes were short messages that users could share on their profile with close friends or followers.


From here, building off of what was started with Instagram Notes, Meta would begin the development of a completely separate application in January of 2023 under the name of "Project 92". Several potential names were thrown around like Textagram or Epigram, but it was ultimately decided to reuse the name Threads from the original discontinued Snapchat clone app.

The app would be revealed in app stores on July 3rd, 2023, and finally released to the public on July 5th 2023. It's release in Europe would be delayed until December 14th, 2023, due to EU bureaucrats waiting to get clarity on Threads' data collection policies and issues with the previously mentioned issue with the tight integration between Instagram and Threads that led to Instagram accounts being deleted if a user wished to delete their Threads account.

Within a day of its launch, Threads had reached 30 million users. This would make Threads one of the fastest-growing platforms in history, and it even surpassed the previous record holder ChatGPT. This statistic, while seemingly impressive, is slightly misleading, as despite an impressive launch of a 30 million users, Threads could not sustain its userbase, which dropped more than 80% to 8 million daily active users by the end of July 2023. By November of 2024, the daily visits to Threads were lagging behind its competitors Twitter and Bluesky:


The Fediverse and The Fedipact

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Similar to fellow Twitter alternative Bluesky, Threads was also aiming to be a decentralized social media platform. On March 21st, 2024, Threads would announce that it was joining the Fediverse, a network of interconnected social media platforms that can communicate with each other despite being separate services. Threads would roll out support for ActivityPub protocol in early 2024, and fully support it by the end of the year.

Despite Threads' desire to connect, the rest of the Fediverse wasn't very keen on Threads joining. This was mainly due to concerns with Meta's moderation policies and collection of data, which many in the Fediverse believed was an existential thread. This would lead to the creation of the Anti-Meta Pact or Fedipact. The Fedipact was a pledge by various Fediverse adminstrators where all signatories would unconditionally block or defederate Threads, making interaction between Threads users and other Fediverse instances signed on to this pact impossible.

Link (Archive)

 

[Admiral Throbnelius]

I am new here, where is the appropriate place to post random screenshot of Threads that are funny? E.G. this image:

Here's a Threads thread to do just that.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

The threads/threads-threads thread

You Can Now Share Your Custom Feeds on Threads (archive)
Challenging Bluesky, Threads now allows for public custom feeds (archive)

 

[Dire Dire Cocks]

I completely forgot that this even existed after Bluesky became the thing that all of the leftists moved too after they decided Xitter went too far. Seems like a goldmine for small retardation.

 

[Organized Derailment]

Oh yeah, sorry Zuck. Threads is dog cock.

 

[LolcowsESL]

Pedophile web.

 

[Maxwell Carter]

I completely forgot that this even existed after Bluesky became the thing that all of the leftists moved too after they decided Xitter went too far. Seems like a goldmine for small retardation.

Ah, those people!

 

[Admiral Throbnelius]

I completely forgot that this even existed after Bluesky became the thing that all of the leftists moved too after they decided Xitter went too far. Seems like a goldmine for small retardation.

I think there's potential for content, I mean, some lolcows use Threads (off the top of my head I'm pretty sure Kevin Gibes has an account and @Gflashex posts on Threads), but it got completely eclipsed by Bluesky, especially around the election. I remember so many memes about how nobody uses Threads popping up on Bluesky.

 

[mobilefagging]

Maybe you could also include Reels as well? Both are owned by Instagram anyways, and there's tons of schizocows on there.

 

[Hellwalker]

During your research of Threads, how much funny/retarded material did you find? Is there enough that could sustain a thread?

 

[Relinquish]

Most of you guys have no idea about this but Threads is really big in Kazakhstan (and their neighboring countries), it's quite literally their version of Twitter. Most people who use it are older people and people with kids or grandkids (very rarely Zoomers but you can sometimes spot them too)

My mom uses Threads and she sometimes sends me some posts from here to read, most of them are just informative travel blogs about countries but they are really important here, the important part is THE COMMENTS. The comments on Threads are almost ALWAYS filled with the dumbest politsperging ever known to man. Kazakhstan's neighbors don't really have a good relationship with each other, to say the least, so every time a topic about them comes they always will argue about their country until their fingers will fallout out of their hands. Think of it like "Balkan nationalism" but without any irony and Reddit-filled arguments

Is there enough that could sustain a thread?

I believe there is but you need to actively look for it or else the thread will most likely die. I can very much see this thread being like a "Reddit General" thread

Maybe you could also include Reels as well?

Instagram Reels is a completely different beast. There's little to NO MODERATION there. I have seen uncensored gore here being posted with hundreds of likes. I've already mentioned it in the gore thread but my classmate who uses it keeps sending me literally the worst, most offensive humanly possible memes in existence there and all of them can stay up for months without being deleted

 

[Hellwalker]

I believe there is but you need to actively look for it or else the thread will most likely die. I can very much see this thread being like a "Reddit General" thread

Do you think that looking for content will be either perusing the site to see what you can find or actively hunting for it? I think it will be the latter since Threads is marginally unpopular compared to Reddit or even Blusky. Comparing Threads to something like Reddit, where you can find tranny shit, Musk and Trump derangement, and all sorts of faggots in seconds, I think the juice wont be worth the squeeze. I would be more than happy to be wrong about that, though.

 

[Crex Crex]

Kazakhstan's neighbors don't really have a good relationship with each other, to say the least, so every time a topic about them comes they always will argue about their country until their fingers will fallout out of their hands. Think of it like "Balkan nationalism" but without any irony and Reddit-filled arguments

Do they argue over whose prostitutes or potassium are the world's best?

 

[Hellwalker]

Can anyone explain what in the fuck this person is all about? The tone in all their posts sounds like a seething butthurt bitch. I found this person when searching the word "terf" on Threads.

Of course it's a nigger.

(https://archive.is/Wf66S)
The post that came up when searching terf was this:

It's something about "cis" and gender shit. I didn't really pay too much attention to this banter because I had the question propping up in my mind of "You know how easy it is to sound civilized and not a person who sounds like a faggot?". I guess I expected too much of a nigger to not be so rowdy. These were the posts that were in the OP.

Spoiler

It all looks like faggot shit to me.
I guess it's to be expected that you'll see the word privilege thrown somewhere at least once when it's from a nigger.

Sounds like shit that doesn't matter.

I don't get why a person needs to bitch about getting MATI over retards when they can just log off. The last post I'll show is this person being a retard over people "hating" (One line of text is the only "hating" they show) some niggers buying out a section at Popeyes and making a scene.

(https://archive.is/j8B2i)

Can you guess the race of the person who would exclaim that they "adore" fried chicken?

Honestly, this person might just be a whole big bag of nothing but it was facsinating to me to come across a person like this. One that really makes you go, "Lol, what a faggot". I only really see people like this on the Farms since I avoid retards.
Anyways, here's a funny little comment that I found.



(https://archive.is/iByLh)
This is OP:


(https://archive.is/SYelV)
These are the books he has written, according to Amazon:

I'd trust this guy with my kids, wouldn't you?

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

My experience is basically that Threads is Reddit-lite. Which is like saying diet bleach. But I also think Threads is like classic Twitter that we all despised years and years ago. Threads is filled with trannies and other lesser creeps who like to use link.tree and other opsec-compromising links to other websites. It could be fertile ground for finding more batshit lolcows

Spoiler: ramblings of mine

My personal favorite moments were when I got under the skin of some individual and they took it upon themselves to follow me around to every post I make. Try to picture in your head yourself walking down a sidewalk and some weirdo is just criticizing every movement you make. “Why are you swinging your arms so much? Why are you stepping on cracks? Why are you walking with such a long stride?” when all you are doing is just walking. And yammering about me, “Did you know this person is a transphobe??” or some stupid shit. Like they could just ignore me but no they make it their mission to ensure every single thing I type has their grievances against me + why I am wrong in their minds about anything.

I liked it because it was like having a personal fool follow me around to provide entertainment and make my algorithmic engagement rating go up so more could see my posts.

Meta has always been a censorious service. They reeeeeestrict almost anyone. Don’t know how much has changed since Meta’s half-hearted promise of reform. However these two seem to have survived their purges,

The only one that seemed to survive is this guy, Shane / DrMarioKart https://www.threads.net/@drmariokart
It’s his mission to ensure there is a block list of everybody who isn’t in perfectly locked formation with the goosestepping of current year trends. The list of users he makes “block parties” on is…..vast.

Here’s one more bigot brigade crusader. She was ground zero of the man or bear hypothetical, https://www.threads.net/@the.bear.in.the.woods and spends her days just shaming people who think men in dresses are not women.

Basically if you are famous on Threads, you will be very interesting to some more enterprising kiwis looking for content. Not just them but their adjacent followers and mutuals.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I use Instagram to keep in touch with friends and nothing else, and the platform's shilling of Threads is pretty obnoxious. Not as obnoxious as the insane amounts of ads they force on you, but obnoxious enough to ensure I'd never use Threads even if I wanted to.

I will say that the attempt at a mass exodus to Threads to get away from Musk was sufficiently more short-lived than the Bluesky one that really picked up last November. Some people I know are still using Bluesky but I don't know a single person still using (or even talking about) Threads. Most people seem to have forgot it even exists.

 

[Angry Lurker]

Good thread OP.

 

[Meth Reindeer]

I use Instagram for normie memes and the occasional doomscroll. Every time it advertises threads to me and actually I read what it shares I am either amused or annoyed. They're almost always whiny threads about problems in life due to the posters choices (think: my landlord is evicting me because I don't pay rent, or I was fired for being sassy), plain moaning about stuff outside of anyone’s control, or weird bragging (either in subject or form).

Compared to what I see on Twitter/X, which I only browse occasionally, I'd say threads users are just plain miserable people with self-inflated egos. I guess it being a spin-off of Instagram this shouldn't surprise me, but the way I have my social media algorithms trained on other platforms, I just don't normally see that behaviour.

 

[Poz My Neg Hole!]

Threads was bluesky from a year ago.

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

Threads was bluesky from a year ago.

That’s what’s funny. There was a Twitter “exodus” to Threads in 2023, but since Zuckerberg has realized he can make more money giving normal people what they want? Well, now the abnormal people are leaving Meta for BlueSky and now Threads is a bit of a ghost town.

I think this thread would have been much funnier a year ago. But even then, Threads was still just 99% bots and the occasional faggot weirdo. Threads exists as a pissy “one-up” attempt between two billionaires, Musk and Zuck. And this is the best Zuck could do?