It’s gotta be the in-feed Threads carousels in Instagram, I have to give Meta credit, that’s a great way to get people into the threads app. I’m also finding more of the people I liked from Twitter on Threads now. It’s nice to have that corner of the internet back again.

It’s such brazen click grubbing, though. They’ll show most of the post except for the last few words, so you click through to see what it says. I guess it helps some PM at Meta meet their KPIs, but those clicks are not real threads users. They’re not going to open the app otherwise.

I wouldn’t have opened the app, but I find I stay browsing around even after I view the post. Threads really does seem to be alive in the same way twitter was. I haven’t yet naturally opened threads yet, but I’ll probably hit that point soon.

I am limping along on the last gasp of nitter until threads is big enough I can get breaking news from there. Hopefully we reach the tipping point before nitter gives out forever.

It's very common to see news organically shared on Fedi as well. I get a ton of Boston local news shared via users I follow on the Boston instances.

Is Facebook really better than Twitter? Why not just mastodon?

I don't think Mastadon will ever take off without a major change in the tech, because content is way too hard to find due to the lack of centralization. I am signed up but basically never use it for this reason.

They just announced Trending Topics rolling out. should help with breaking news https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/12/in-battle-with-x-threads-g...

I forget completely about Threads, until about every 3 months when an article about it pops up on HN.

I don’t know where these 30M users are, but none of them are anybody in my work/family/friends circle.

And very little chatter about it here on HN either.

I know literally zero people using it, or at the very least talking about using it or sharing stories from it.

HN users have long been calling Facebook a dead platform because none of their contacts are there. Yet FB has 130M dau in north America. Threads will be fine too.

not only that, they just posted a great quarter and their stock's taken a jump on that news.

That's just 10% of China's population though-- not much.

One US & Canada user is worth 3x a European user and 15x ROW (rest of the world) user to Facebook.

Source: ARPU from Meta's Q4'23 earnings announcement.

I'm not sure the relevance of the population of China, to the number of US Facebook users.

Hank Green tried cross-posting content to his Threads and Twitter accounts and found similar levels of engagement (replies and likes) on both platforms.

Notice how it's shifted from time spent to active users to now reach. I remember when facebook's metric was how much time a day at somepoint it moved to logged in once a day and that switched to once a month. I don't understand reach. I've seen a few people have profile links but all of them are empty. All of the people I know who work at facebook on marketing have a profile with one post all on the same day. The reach probably breaks down to to: 100 million instagram profiles accounts and 30 million clicks from people expecting to find something but nothing was there.

The article is talking about monthly active users.

What are all those people doing? Because I sure don't see that kind of activity in the engagement metrics. Very few posts get thousands of likes, most languish in the double digits.

I see a lot of empty generated profiles connected to instagram

I think upvotes should be capped at 10 (if 10 people like your post, you win), so this metric isn't of interest to me. I guess it would be to professionals, though?

has threads fully adopted activitypub? wonder how they are controlling bad instances from flooding the feed, maybe they just do not federate?

Also last time I checked, most of the popular mastodon (and Lemmy?) instances were planning to block threads all together. Not sure what became of it though.

Here's Adam Mosseri's (Threads Head) update from 7 weeks ago: https://www.threads.net/@mosseri/post/C046LSmPAuN

Their only chance now is to buy Farcaster

Threads would be much better if it had the algorithm of TikTok.

Basic things like I scroll through Threads on my iPhone (while logged into my account) and then I do the same on my iPad and it shows me the same posts. WTF?!? Keeping track of what I've read (or at least scrolled past) is really basic and has been part of email, newsgroups, etc. for decades.

TikTok does this pretty well but it is also pathologically good at picking new things based on your viewing habits. It has a huge advantage over Threads (and Facebook, Instagram, X, etc) in that TikTok only presents one thing at a time to the user. If I flick it away in a fraction of a second, it shows that something has triggered me (boredom, disgust, etc) to move to the next thing. If I watch one clip multiple times and/or dig into the comments or other clips from the same creator, or even follow a creator, chances are I want to see more of that and/or more like that. I'm sure it's more complex, but there's a lot of feedback to the algorithm there. Facebook and Instagram try to learn from the "more..." buttons that expand comments, but it's not really the same level of information.

As it stands, the discovery process on Threads is no where near as compelling as it is on TikTok.

Threads hasn't built the better misinformation machine/dopamine generator/rage inducer, you say?

Maybe I should sign up.

> TikTok does this pretty well but it is also pathologically good at picking new things based on your viewing habits. It has a huge advantage over Threads (and Facebook, Instagram, X, etc) in that TikTok only presents one thing at a time to the user.

I'm glad someone else gets this. Fundamentally, TikTok are solving a much, much easier ML problem than FB/IG/Twitter et al. They can classify every post you see much more easily than the others.

This is presumably (maybe) because they were built as products with ML in mind, rather than having it tacked on at the end.

Threadbare

Hanging by a thread

Its all ennui to me

Forced down our throats via Instagram, a few people trying it out just to get away from Twitter, and the rest that have 'latched' onto it seem like grifters and terribly low quality content. Mixed engagement. And then there's all the weird UI quirks and failings on 'network effect'/reachability that impact daily use. Maybe it works for some but it just ends up being another separate thing like all the mastodon servers, siloed, and missing that broader eclectic reach that twitter still somehow is affording in some ways (debatable I know). Everytime I give it a chance I'm away within hours/days thinking its DOA just like bluesky.

You seem like you’re doing just fine working things out for yourself

At no point did polls of people following the 00 or 16 elections show the absurdly large level of denialism that the GOP has currently. Implying that there is some near equivalence is ignorant and misleading. No major party in US history has the level of lies spread by the current right wing machine.

Read some history.

Additionally, the 2000 and 2016 elections were met with legal challenges, not a violent mob trying to overthrow the government.

Things are different when you have the mainstream media on your side. Case in point is the fact that you believe people were trying to overthrow the government without weapons.

Anyone using the term "mainstream media" as if there is some global unified cabal telling people lies can be discounted out of hand. "Mainstream media" constitutes many places that do accurate reporting. Very few if any sources not in the mainstream come anywhere close to being accurate - nearly all of them exist to get clicks selling conspiracies to disgruntled people.

The fact is nearly all media had the same conclusion as it happened - left, right, unbiased, foreign, fact based - the mob was trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power so Trump could retain power.

And "without weapons" is an outright lie. Go watch the videos. Go read the court transcripts. Go check the actual evidence instead of spouting nonsense and irrelevant talking points.

It was only later the right ring media (also known as liars - see the numerous lawsuits they lost and the evidence pulled from them - especially Fox News, and soon OANN and others will face the same legal standards and will fold) started to change their tune.

And they do it because it works on enough people not able to understand or accept reality - as your comment illustrates.

People that have a hard time accepting reality or evidence use the term "mainstream media" derisively in order to preserve a world view formed by eating conspiracies and nonsense. The actors selling lies to people that flit from conspiracy to conspiracy love the term "mainstream media" because it helps them grift money from people.

What term do you want me to use instead of 'mainstream media'?

Fine, makeshift weapons that you wouldn't use to overthrow a country. No weapons that Antifa wouldn't have anyway, and they were less coordinated than an Antifa riot (Oh whoops Antifa is not a thing according to your trustworthy sources).

When all media outles actually face the consequences of their lies (not just right wing ones), then maybe you'll have a leg to stand on. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but anyone still stumping for the mainstream media is utterly naive, and yes Fox and OANN are also mainstream.

> anyone still stumping for the mainstream media is utterly naive

Anyone silly enough to lump all such things together given the vast array of different outlets is utterly simplistic. The name is simply used to discount reality conspiracy people don't like.

I'm not stumping for anything other than things which have the best track record of reporting accurately, as evidenced by outcomes.

A simple subset of this can be checked by polls before an event measured against outcomes. You can get historical datasets of polls from pretty much all outlets, then compare against actual outcomes. For example, 538 posts a crapton of historical data from lots of outlets along many axes at https://data.fivethirtyeight.com/

Guess what - mainstream media far outclasses other outlets. This is science, not opinion.

Now do the same for other datasets, which you can also do - from finance, to political events, to science claims, to pretty much anything that has basis in reality.

There - I gave you an empirical method to measure accuracy of a news source. Please show me something not mainstream that outscores the median of mainstream places on one of these empirical tests. I have analyzed data on many of these things, which is how I know the answer you're going to find. Good luck.

Of course, people enamored with silly labels rarely actually check evidence in a principled manner, which is how they get to using silly labels.

> Of course, people enamored with silly labels rarely actually check evidence in a principled manner, which is how they get to using silly labels.

> Guess what - mainstream media...

I've already asked you for another term. You seem comfortable using silly labels yourself.

> A simple subset of this can be checked by polls before an event measured against outcomes.

Oh you mean like in November 2016?

>Oh you mean like in November 2016?

I hoped you'd pick that. The type of person that picks an outlier event that supports a preconceived world view while ignoring the mass of evidence against it is the type that bends facts, ignores facts, and creates lies to maintain a pre-conceived worldview rather than makes a world view that is based on facts. This is the kind of person that uses the term "mainstream media" derisively, because they want to hold some conspiracy/martyr/superiority out of ignorance beliefs.

Do you understand how evidence works? You don't post pick an event supporting a world view and say "see!". You pick all data, analyze it, then form a world view. Your type always has the same invalid reasoning methods, cherry picks events while ignoring the mass of evidence, deflects and cannot stay on a topic to demonstrate facts correctly, which is how you get the beliefs you do.

It also takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance to ignore the actual odds presented by mainstream media the few days before the election, and pretend there is some huge upset. Here's the actual data (which I suspect you both don't know and are unable to process), as you can check at Real Clear Politics: Bloomberg 44% Clinton, 41% Trump. Economist 45-41. ABC News 47-43. Fox 48-44. Monmouth 50-44. NBC 44-40. NBC 44-40. Reuters 42-39. Rasmussen 42-39. And so on. All of these were very close, and the if you look at the actual polls (all can be found on RCP) the difference was within the margin of error. It was a toss-up and people like you keep bringing it up because you both don't understand the actual evidence and you want to discredit accurate information sources that point out your ignorance on how the world works. Bet you didn't realize these were so close, probably because you consumed nonsense content that told you otherwise. You certainly whipped it out on cue.

Not so magical huh?

Now, if you can learn how to do actual evidence, show me the non-mainstream media site that has a better track record than, say, 538.

Even better yet - find a place the predicted Trump to win 2016 and tell me how they have done on a larger dataset.

Oh that's right, you cannot. You prefer info that is crap to accurate ones.

For the record, guess what the "main stream news" had as odds for 2020 and guess what happened?

If you cannot present even a single non-mainstream news site you think is accurate, then I have proven my point. Mainstream media is more accurate because you cannot put up a single contender.

So, either put up a contender or admit you have none. This discussion always goes the same direction with your type.

You're right, I wasn't looking at the polls but rather mainstream media pundits' views of Trump's chances which were woefully wrong. So yes, I was foolish enough to think the pundits (which represented their respective mainstream media outlets) were actually basing their opinions on polls and reasonable data instead of lying. Thanks for clearing that up.

>So yes, I was foolish enough to think the pundits (which represented their respective mainstream media outlets) were actually basing their opinions on polls and reasonable data instead of lying

No, you simply are making up nonsense still. Polls changed quickly near the election, as did lots of the pundits. That you are completely ignorant of what I just showed you is because you drank right wing kool aid for so long that your only reply about media accuracy is one event pulled nearly 8 years ago. That's sad.

And for discounting the pundits, so far every one of your claims and talking points is straight out of right wing pundit land: and after the Dominion lawsuit pulled all the internal memos out of Fox news where the pundits were calling your type ignorant, stupid, needing to hear stories that confirm their beliefs or they'll go to other networks that feed them the lies they want - it's completely clear all that path was and is simply lies, known to be lies to those spreading them, simply to keep people like you eating the slop.

And eat it you did.

So far all you've demonstrated is a lack of knowledge about media accuracy, an inability to grasp it when fed to you in data you can check yourself, and are unable to present even a single place you claim is more accurate. Yet somehow you still cling to the belief that you cannot present evidence for.

That's the outcome every time I discuss media accuracy with anyone that has your style of comments. Not a one has any ability to figure out how to measure quality.

If you want to adapt your world view to facts, instead of the other way around, start feeding your brain info from a place that is at least accurate on claims when checked.

If you're still unable to present a single media source you claim is more accurate than "mainstream media", then admit you must consume what we'll have to simply call the "inaccurate fringestream media," and I'm done with this thread.

> No, you simply are making up nonsense still.

Nope, I remember what I saw. They convinced me that Trump was an idiot that didn't know what he was doing, and up until election night, that he had no hope of winning. I'm not a Fox viewer either, despite what you believe.

> nearly 8 years ago.

That outlier impressed me quite a bit. I'm not going to go through each instance of pundits lying, because it would take too long, and I'm worried you might run out of insinuations.

> If you're still unable to present a single media source you claim is more accurate than "mainstream media", then admit you must consume what we'll have to simply call the "inaccurate fringestream media,"

I don't trust any single media source. I take your point that polls are more trustworthy than I thought though.

> and I'm done with this thread.

Okay, bye. Thanks for the chat.

Wow, the bootlicking in this thread is gross. And getting downvoted to death for speaking truth is an indictment of HN's culture.

Enjoy your bucketloads of logical fallacies, I am outta here.

This place is gross. I need a shower.

HN is a breeding ground for virulent misinformation. Why are you still here?

Stacey Abrams will be quite disappointed that you don't support her.

Sorry, but Threads has all the sex appeal of a midday book reading at a suburban Barnes & Noble

I am not there for the sex. I want a solid information platform that is real time and a lot of people use. That obviously means they invest in anti-propaganda and brigading tech. Hopefully it is not too flashy and stays out of my way, and the search / curation features (like twitter lists) work enough that they are not a point of friction. There is still obvious work to be done, but it is on a good trajectory for now.

I'm not talking about sex when I say "sex appeal". I'm talking about vibes

So intangible qualities that are completely subjective. That’s a convient way to avoid the need to provide evidence or rationale. I would say the same thing about Facebook, but contrary to my opinion, the MAUs don’t lie.

Then say vibes.

My god, the vibes here are even worse. And when I say "vibes", I mean "sex appeal".

The for you algorithm on Threads which is dedicated to totally misunderstanding your wants has decided to show me only sexy posts at least twice.

But that audience of normies shows it's successful, as long as you can avoid the Facebook problem where your hapless older relatives leave confused comments on your friends' posts.

As for myself, I can't think of anything to post on it because it doesn't have enough constraints to make it interesting.