A few days ago, a completely new social network, Threads, was launched. Since a certain amount of time has already passed, we can already discuss all the advantages and disadvantages of this platform and have a rough understanding of how it works, so let's discuss.
As it was a long war between two giants like Elon Max and Mark Zuckerberg - the announcement and launch of Threads was to say the least. So already in the first 24 hours after the launch, the number of registered users exceeded more than 50 million.
It is not a secret for anyone that today this Threads platform is probably the main and most serious competitor of Twitter. But it is not surprising, because the platform is practically the same in terms of subject matter, except that the functionality is different. But let's be honest - since the purchase and adoption of Twitter by Elon Musk, things have been going well, to put it mildly. Well, this was caused by a large number of radical changes that caused a lot of negative feedback from many users, including famous ones. What was the turbulent emotions of users worth, after limiting the number of posts that can be viewed per day. Therefore, Instagram, which belongs to Meta, decided to add fuel to the fire. You can't say otherwise, because initially the announcement of the release of the platform was planned for the end of July, but it became available already on July 6.
What can you say... It seems that Zuckerberg is serious about taking over the place of the king of the text-based social network. But will he be? Let's think together.
What is Threads
As we said earlier - the functionality of Threads is almost one-to-one reminiscent of Twitter. Here you can post text with a limit of up to 500 characters, attach photos or videos to them. In addition, you can put likes on posts, add comments and repost publications. And in general, as in Twitter, there is an opportunity to subscribe to accounts that are interesting to you.
There is only one feed here and the algorithm of the feed is built in such a way that first you see the posts published by the users to whom you are subscribed, and then the recommended content that the algorithm of the platform suggests to you based on interest. In general, everything is like in Instagram. But the downside is that there is still no option in the settings to force Threads to show you messages only from accounts you are subscribed to, and there is no option to clear the home screen of unfamiliar accounts. That is, one way or another - you will see what Threads offers you. Well, at least until the algorithm is adjusted to your interests.
What is interesting, by the way - at the time of launch, there is no integrated advertising in Threads. It looks unusual in our time, because nothing interferes with viewing the content. But let's be honest and admit that this is not for long, because Meta receives the lion's share of revenue from tracking what users do on the Internet and uses it for targeted advertising.
In general, this is a classic microblogging service for communication between users from all over the world. Today it is available in slightly more than 100 countries, and of course Ukraine is among them.
What's interesting about Threads
There are no private messages in Threads. That is, if you want to write someone a message - welcome to Instagram. But what surprised me personally was the deletion of the Threads account.
You can only delete your account together with your Instagram page. Why did they do it? We can only guess, but my personal opinion is: attraction of the audience, both live and those users who still "didn't like it". If you want to delete it, please delete your Instagram, of course almost no one will do it, it's easier to leave your Threads account empty. But to be honest, I think the deletion function will be added very quickly, as soon as the number of registrations exceeds some planned number. What exactly - you can only guess here, but this is my personal opinion. There's no need to lie here, I'll answer right away - the user can deactivate his account at any time. Well but it will not be possible to completely delete it. Both social networks are too tightly connected.
One more important point that I would like to highlight is, in my opinion, a shortcoming. Namely: there is no possibility to transfer "threads" (the same as "tweeted") from a foreign language to the native language, as for example in the same Twitter. But you know what's interesting?
Did Ukrainian users like the Threads platform
Not everything is so clear-cut here. After monitoring some news feeds in the last few days after the launch of the platform, the following things can be highlighted:
- From the very first day, the Threads platform started banning Ukrainian users for "unacceptable content".
Why so? The reasons are different: someone published a photo of the consequences of the latest Russian attack on Lviv. Someone is "inappropriate" spoke about Russians, etc. But the most interesting thing is to write something about the famous "Azov" - you can get a ban at once in all Meta social networks. And why would that be?
Well, we understood the following: there is no war in Threads, but there are bans. However, considering that the social network has only just launched, there is still some hope that the state of affairs will change. Everyone remembers how at the beginning of the war there was a similar story with Twitter. But in any case, I would like to believe it.
Personally, it is still unclear to us why Mark Zuckerberg's social network is fundamentally better than the usual Twitter and what great advantages it has. And what do you think? It will be interesting to hear your opinion.
