The question occurred to me as soon as I saw the headline of the NYT article, "Threads Becomes Most Rapidly Downloaded App, Raising Twitter’s Ire/Instagram’s new app was downloaded more than 30 million times in 16 hours."
I usually read Twitter as a website, along with most of my other on-line reading, including Facebook. I like to move around when I'm getting ideas for articles to read, not be trapped in the company's stifling, controlling environment.
It's not surprising for Threads to begin with massive downloading if there's no other way even to glance at it. I don't think the NYT article answers my question, but I bailed halfway in and just googled it.
Maybe the NYT suppressed the bad news. The Guardian has the answer, in "Threads: how do I sign up and is it any different to Twitter? Meta’s newest app can be accessed with an Instagram account and looks a lot like its rival":
Currently you can access Threads only via the iOS or Android apps. There is no desktop version at this stage, and Meta could not say when it might make one available.
Bad. Prohibitively bad.
Posts
60 comments:
App only + you must have an instagram account and can't delete your threads account without deleting your IG account.
FaceBook is not a good business and they've proven it. This idea that they are an attractive alternative to Twitter premises that Twitter is somehow bad, FaceBook somehow good. But I'd say right now, when it comes to privacy and data security, I can point to changes Twitter has made.
Facebook has just had scandal after scandal and gotten away with it. Same leadership at the helm.
If Zuckerberg was not in bed with the Democratic Party, he'd but aggressively targeted on anti-trust grounds eight ways to Sunday. Zuckerberg is not, nor has he ever been, a trustworthy figure. The equally-dirty Bill Gates anointed Facebook (made it the king of social media) per similar character traits. This explains how they both survive...gifts to government defenders...control, monopoly, censorship, bullying, stealing competitor's products, etc.
Microsoft systematically killed Lotus, WordPerfect, Netscape, etc. Zuckerberg has run an identical game plan.
My threshold is if I can read anonymously. I was garnering ‘news’ from Twitter but it’s dead to me at the moment…
Is there an expectation the censorship rats what jumped off the sinking Twitter ship will swim to this SS Suckerberg and it becomes the censored platform of record for the election cycle? Magic 8 Ball says As I See It…
I'm with you, Ms Althouse. The home computer is for internet usage; the phone is for phone and text communications. Never the twain shall meet.
Of course, I quit FB when it canned Trump, and never would sign on to a new social platform anyway, but still, it should be available on something other than 'apps.'
Twitter has become useless for anyone who is not logged in (or a member) as there is no way to see interaction/replies just a single linked tweet.
Given that Threads was rushed out due to Twitter's recent meltdown and limits, I expect a lot of functionality to show up within the month.
Elon has been promising Full Self Driving is just around the corner for many years now. I am willing to believe web access to Threads is more likely to arrive by next quarter than the eternally promised FSD.
A browser forces developers to conform to a common standard, and to cede some control over the user environment to the user and the browser developer.
Obviously Meta would like to avoid this if possible.
Given how much data the app scrapes from you, I doubt you will ever see a website. It will be app only, most likely.
certainly helps expalain WHY they had 30 million downloads...
Want to find out if Threads are threadbare? Download it, and SEE!!
I don't think this is right.
When I have seen some of my favorite people's Twitter pages (AT Rupar, Jeff Timmer of Michigan) feature their new Threads posts, I have clicked on them and was taken seamlessly to their Threads pages. I have not downloaded any Threads apps.
Meanwhile, at least on my iPhone, I used to regularly use browser searches for Twitter content and could also seamlessly go to Twitter (via, of course, the Twitter app that I downloaded long ago). Now, due to reprehensible Musk changes, I have to constantly re-sign back into Twitter any time that I attempt to go to Twitter from a browser. That part is definitely new, and is hateful. (Perhaps Musk thinks it cuts down on malevolent Twitter usage; for me it is just an annoyance. A major annoyance.)
I don't disagree with Althouse's position on her favored way of surfing the socials; it's much the same as my own preference. And I can't speak to any of the technical software issues. But this has been my own user experience in the last few days.
It's sad what has happened to Twitter. Although I will in all fairness point out that the new "Reader Context" additions at Twitter have been quite good. Case in Point: Over the course of the July 4 holiday, Senator Josh Hawley, the very masculine and fruitful Junior Senator from Missouri, posted what he purported to be a long and aggressively Christian nationalist "quote" from Patrick Henry.
The only problem was, it wasn't a Patrick Henry quote at all; it was a quote from a 1956 essay about Patrick Henry, and was never a quote from Patrick Henry or any other Founding Father. Remarkably, having been popularly fact-checked so directly, Hawley has left up the grossly erroneous post.
I shed the Facebook app from my phone long ago. I will not download Threads. Everything via a browser for me. I do have Insty on my phone -- but that's because I only put pictures up on it, pictures taken by phone. I loathe people who pollute instagram with text.
I don't buy or use any Zuck products. I won't give that peckerhead a dime of mine. If I could, I would avoid Google products. But those...I cannot avoid. They are still some of the best products out there. I did avoid Twitter since instantly deleting my account years and years ago- thinking it would be a mess and nothing more than a time suck. But...I stepped back into Twitter some time after Elon bought it. I found it is an absolute time suck, but it's kinda fun.
I run into a lot of info on it, news and stories that come fast. Many get corrected or corroborated just as quickly as they come up. But...I've seen a slew of great, serious stories on there, so it is a source of information. And I've enjoyed the banter from some, and watched an enormous amount of vitriol on all sides, which does get exhausting and pushes me off- which is good.
And sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I see a post by an 'Ann Althouse'.
How much more proof is needed that liberal/progressive echo chambers - as well as progressive ideas - cannot prevail in the free marketplace of ideas unless the scales are pressed down for them by the administrative bias of marketplace owner?
It is clear as day now. Progressive world order ideas are completely shot full of holes. They get beat up almost everywhere, even reddit now which was a bastion of liberal orthodoxy for years. The entire apparatus of state power is needed to create the safe space where their bad ideas can flourish. I can't understand how people don't see this yet
Bad. Prohibitively bad.
It’s actually worse. At present you cannot delete your Threads profile unless you delete your entire Instagram account. Meta claims to be working on this bug (feature).
Why would anyone support or use the app of one of biggest opponents of the First Amendment in American history?
On top of that, Zuck spend $400m to install Joe Biden. The damage of the Biden presidency will last for decades.
I read this morning on Quartz that privacy will be almost non existent on Threads. This is a serious data mining operation. Secondly if you enroll through Instagram the only way you can unenroll is to delete your instagram account. Anyone who trusts Z and Co is an idiot. Hold off enrolling until you know the full story in a few weeks.
Elon's Twitter is a mess but it is preferable to anything put out by Zuckerburg or any Google related property.
META is in the business of building extensive dossiers for the government of the United States on every individual in the country. They sell this data to others, of course (mainly advertisers), but the purpose of gathering this data is so that every person in the United States can be individually profiled, down to everything they ever said, or read, or who they "liked" or didn't, voted for or voted against.
That's why it's tied to your phone and you can't use your PC. They can identify you that way. Your cell phone is your unique identifier. It is the best spy machine ever invented.
One more big negative to consider: once you sign up for Threads, the only way to get rid of it is to get rid of Instagram, its sister app. It's the Hotel California of chat apps.
Just another platform to spread progressive (neobarbarian) stories. Conservatives and anti-progressives need not apply.
Also bad - the notion that 30 million people actually downloaded the app in the fist 16 hours it was available. I suspect that either the numbers are faked, or there was some kind of auto-download for anyone using instagram.
During the TikTok uproars, in the news, TikTok was almost exclusively referred to as an app. Drove me nuts.
looks like threads.com is taken. I wonder what they will use.
rehajm said...
"My threshold is if I can read anonymously. "
You can use twitter pseudonymously.
Meta stole the idea, software, and scraped data from Twitter. That was what was behind the recent limiting on Twitter. They knew there was a huge scraping operation going on. Twitter is MUCH better since Elon. They can't stand that a somewhat free speech platform exists now with Elon's takeover. Elon is suing the shit out of them.
Threads has already blacklisted several conservatives before they even posted anything. I can see why LLR would love it.
If you support Threads, you do not think much of the First Amendment nor the concept of a marketplace of ideas. You love an echo chamber...and a dull one to boot.
It's been entertaining listening to the sheep on the left bleating, "Twitter is a horrible place, and it won't let us in!" That's over now, though. TechCrunch reported two days ago that Twitter is once again open to all. Funny how the paywall on the New York Times never seems to bother them.
I think personal rules ("visit the internet through the browser app, not other apps," "a computer should sit on a table, not in your hand") are fine, but just keep in mind what purpose your rule is meant to serve. That will help you address whether an exception is warranted.
If you look at the alerts as to what Threads scoops --- it is virtually everything. Any files they want. Audio files they want. TikTok is almost blushing at the sheer audacity of what Zuck is doing.
I hate being trapped in apps for the same reason you articulate. I don't understand why this hatred of app entrapment isn't wider spread.
I found it [twitter] is an absolute time suck, but it's kinda fun.
Yep. Quora is another, and Sturgeon's Law applies to both :)
"Bad."
For you maybe. Not for Zuck.
"Zuck spend $400m to install Joe Biden."
Protection money well spent. But will Dems stay bought? Ukraine must give Zuck some confidence.
I notice that links to twitter no longer work. I don't have an account and they no longer allow access.
I have a better question: Where was this when Twitter was fully participating in the censorship regime?
People go to Threads for the purity.
LLR-democratical and Violent Homosexual Rage Rape Fantasist Chuck: " Now, due to reprehensible Musk changes, I have to constantly re-sign back into Twitter any time that I attempt to go to Twitter from a browser. That part is definitely new, and is hateful. (Perhaps Musk thinks it cuts down on malevolent Twitter usage; for me it is just an annoyance. A major annoyance.)"
The best change Musk made, besides
firing all the Fed censors and woke lunatics without missing a beat.
Bots are down, the ability of external AI to scrape and use X/twitter content without compensation heavily reduced.
Meanwhile, hundreds of functionality improvements made including the launch of long form content and videos.
But lets face it. We know what pisses rape rage fantasist boy LLR Chuck off the most about Musk's takeover of X/twitter: SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED ACCESS TO CHILD PORN.
Musk clearly "lost" LLR-democrat Chuck with that one move right there!
walk don't run: "I read this morning on Quartz that privacy will be almost non existent on Threads."
And totally Fed censored.
Dumb Lefty Mark and LLR-democratical Chuvk "paradise".
I read that once you are signed up for Threads, if at any point you opt out, and cancel, that upon doing so, your Instagram account will be eliminated as well simultaneously.
I think it's worse than that, AA. Without knowing more than passing about this, a couple of Twitteratti friends of mine looked into it far more and both came away saying there's no way they'll do it if it's tied to Instagram, which it appears to be, heavily.
I got my kids a couple of Quest 2 VR headsets a couple years ago and that's been a straight up nightmare, mostly because it's tied to Facebook.
Dave Begley: "Why would anyone support or use the app of one of biggest opponents of the First Amendment in American history?"
Come on Dave. You know perfectly well why the left/dems/LLR-left support that, dont you?
Meanwhile, x/twitter has launched its Linkedin competitor as well as received its first approval as a pay app.
Yeah, sounds like a real dead zone over at X/twitter.
Yep, no desktop access is an instant "Nope."
It should also be noted all the functional improvements and changes and expanded free speech at X/twitter is being achieved while the teams methodically work thru and rewrite millions of lines of code and gut the entire previously ludicrous rube goldberg apparatus constructed to censor non-lefty/non-corrupted fed/non-neocon approved opinions.
With just 10% of the previous "workforce"...which was a dumping ground of deep state slugs and hilariously Hunter-like incompetent progeny of democraticals.
I consider Apps to be spyware. I think long and hard before downloading one. I really, really, really, really want to have what's being offered before I do so. And no social media apps. Ever. Worst of the worst.
“ The home computer is for internet usage; the phone is for phone and text communications”
I use the phone for more than that. A lot more. I just use it when I’m out and about. I often use a browser and read websites on the phone and would read Twitter that way. I don’t like my phone signed into anything I care about.
"I don’t like my phone signed into anything I care about."
Me neither. Sign in, use it, sign out. And the desktop is only connected to the router when I'm actively using it. I figure it reduces my cross section for internet related hanky panky.
"all the functional improvements and changes"
Like limiting the amount you can scroll the site and being unable to handle DeSantis's audio campaign announcement?
All those AMAZING changes!
looks like threads.com is taken. I wonder what they will use.
I like that threads.com has a notification on it: "We are not associated with Instagram"
Interestingly, legacy media and dems/LLR-dems/left seem very very very upset and actually quite angry about a movie that deals with child sex trafficking.
And that darn Epstein client list remains very securely hidden....
Along with the hatred for Musk attacking and disabling child porn in X/twitter and the dems/left/LLR-left full embrace of child grooming and sexualization policies for schools as well as democraticals passing state laws to allow strangers to transport underage minors across state lines for "gender affirming care" (child physical mutilation), we really do have more than enough data points to draw inescapable conclusions.
Don't we LLR-democratical Chuck?
What David French would call a child physical mutilation "blessing of liberty".
"not be trapped in the company's stifling, controlling environment."
= Zuckerberg
Ah... I see that it's threads.net.
I was able to follow a link to a threads post (Wonder of science) (on PC w/chrome). Going directly to threads.net seems to be a dead end with just a fancy landing page.
typed in
https://www.threads.net/@cnn
it works on PC/Chrome
it seems like a handy guide for if something is Good.. Or Bad is:
Does Life Long Liberal Chuck approve of it? or find it reprehensible??
If LLL Chuck approves of something (like Universal Government Censorship) it's Bad
IF LLL Chuck finds something reprehensible (like Puppies, or Apple Pie).. Well Enough said
"Threads Becomes Most Rapidly Downloaded App, Raising Twitter’s Ire/Instagram’s new app was downloaded more than 30 million times in 16 hours."
Elon Musk co-founded and leads Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company. As the co-founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon leads all product design, engineering and global manufacturing of the company's electric vehicles, battery products and solar energy products.
Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, a company initially designed to objectify women.
No surprise which of the two is embraced by Progressives. And which one is vilified.
Dumb Lefty Mark: "Like limiting the amount you can scroll the site and being unable to handle DeSantis's audio campaign announcement?"
The DeSantis glitch was addressed long ago...primarily by firing the Dumb Lefty Mark type that was a holdover from Fed-Censor-Controlled Twitter 1.0-Wokey.
Yes, temporarily limiting scroll ability to attack bots and AI content scrapers was greatly appreciated.
As for other improvements, Audio and Video capability added to DM's will be along shortly.
All the while rewriting the entire legacy code....with just 10% of Twitter 1.0-wokey staff and returning free speech to Americans.
LOL
You just go right ahead and mosey on over to Zuck-land Dumb Lefty Mark. It'll be perfect for you!
You can spend all your time predicting the collapse of X/twitter while The Hopeless gadfly, an enginnering illiterate lefty, predicts and prays for the demise of SpaceX while readering, a demonstrated business illiterate, predicts the collapse of Tesla!
Its funny reading all your lefty small-brain "input" self-owns on subjects for which you have zero comprehension.
So keep it up! We can all use a good laugh.
I don't use Twitter, so am unlikely to use Threads. I do await the additional drama with a rather smugly amused "Tell me more, tell me more ."
Should be a clothing website.
Based on the responses here, Musk sycophants are scared to death.
"if at any point you opt out, and cancel, that upon doing so, your Instagram account will be eliminated as well simultaneously.
---
It's a system!
I'm proud to be facebook free.
Dumb Lefty Mark: "Based on the responses here, Musk sycophants are scared to death."
And with that, Zuckerburg sycophant and federal govt censorship fanboy Dumb Lefty Mark flees the room while screeching I Won I Won I Won!
LOL
Its hilarious and its what happens every time a Dumb Lefty, or Dumb Lefty LLR for that matter, ventures into any non-lefty controlled speech space.
And its only going to get worse as time goes on.
Drago, all you have is personal attacks.
As the statement goes, "Where's the beef?"
Threads is booming and Twitter is sinking - and you just made it clear you got nothing.
The only way to access it is through the app? I wonder how many of the downloads were driven by an innocuous Instagram message suggesting you "take a look" at threads, which when engaged would download the app automatically. Zuch appears to be banning any form of conservative or anti-progressive thought as quick as it shows up. That may blow up because, near as I can tell, a significant amount of the left's twitter pleasure is dropping Karen or worse type replies on strings they do not like.
GRW3, you can view Threads on the web.
It's not like websites never add functionality, especially brand new ones.
Post a Comment