Mark Zuckerberg developed Threads, a new text-sharing social media platform made by the Instagram team. Threads give creators and regular posters a place to post changes and have public conversations in real time.
Threads: A new way to talk to other people
Like Instagram, Threads lets you keep up with content creators and others who like the same things you do and connect with them.
● Signing up for Threads is easy: sign in with your Instagram account. Your Instagram handle and verification will stay the same, and you can change your biography to show what you’re interested in on Threads.
● Your Threads page will be private by default if you are under 16 (or 18 in some countries). By following duplicate accounts on Instagram, you can find more people who like the same things you do. Two of Instagram’s most important accessibility features, screen reader support and AI-generated picture descriptions, are also available on Threads.
● The posts suggest material from creators you still need to check out and posts from people you already follow. Posts can have up to 500 characters and links, pictures, and videos up to 5 minutes long. Copying and pasting the link is all it takes to add a Threads post to your Instagram story, and you can do the same thing with any other social media channel.
● You can block replies from threads that contain specific words by using “hidden words,” just like on Instagram. With the three-dot menu in Threads, you can unfollow, ban, limit, or report a user, and any accounts you’ve blocked on Instagram will also be hidden from your feed there.
● ActivityPub is an open social networking system released by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the open standards that make up the modern web. This will let people connect in ways that aren’t possible on most social apps. It will do this by making Threads work with apps like Mastodon and WordPress that use the ActivityPub protocol. Tumblr is just one of several sites that have said they will soon accept ActivityPub.
What can you do else with Threads?
Open social networking methods are helpful for a lot more than just letting you follow other people. People can find communities that share their views because each app that works with it can set its rules and procedures for moderating content. This decentralised way, like the protocols that control email and the web, will be a crucial part of building the online infrastructure of the future.
If your Threads page is public, your content can be shared across platforms and seen by more people. If your Threads page is private, like an Instagram account, only people you’ve permitted to can see your posts and interact with them.
Wrapping up
Threads is the first app from Meta that was made to work with an open social networking system. Its creators hope that by adding to the growing network of apps that work together, more people will be able to find the people they feel most at home with.
iOS and Android versions of Threads are now available in more than 100 countries through their app shops. These include better suggestions for feeds and a more powerful search tool that makes it easier to keep up with trends and topics as they change.
