What is Instagram’s Threads app? All your questions answered

Twitter options — new and outdated — have discovered audiences keen to check out a more recent social networks since Elon Musk took over the corporate in 2022. Mastodon, Bluesky, Spill and T2 are a number of the social media platforms individuals are amongst them. So is Meta’s Threads platform.

What’s Threads? How do you create an account?

Threads is Meta’s text-based Twitter rival. It’s tied to your Instagram account, so you’ll be able to create an account by logging in utilizing your Instagram credentials.

How is it completely different from Twitter?

At present, there are not any paid tiers and adverts on the app. Nevertheless, your verification mark from Instagram is carried over — even if in case you have paid for Meta Verified. Customers can make the most of their Instagram community to seek out individuals to observe.

The app launched greater than a yr in the past, nevertheless it doesn’t have Twitter-like options corresponding to lengthy video, direct messages, or stay audio rooms.

How do you employ Threads?

The platform is at the moment obtainable on iOS and Android in additional than 100 nations. Nevertheless, because of privateness considerations, the app was not at the moment obtainable within the EU till December 2023. At the moment, Meta launched Threads within the area with an possibility for customers to browse the social community with out an account sans the power to publish or work together with different posts.

Since you are logging in by way of your Instagram account, it is possible for you to to observe all of us that you simply observe. Additionally, you will import your username, identify, and settings, like block record.

What number of customers does this factor have?

As of November 2024, Threads has greater than 275 million month-to-month lively customers.

It’s been a gentle ramp-up. Inside hours of launch, Threads crossed the mark of 10 million sign-ups and it reached 100 million customers inside simply 5 days of launch.

What are the constraints of posting on Threads?

Customers can put up 500 characters in a single put up on the app. The put up helps pictures, movies and GIFs. A Thread put up helps as much as 10 media objects. As of July 17, Threads introduced that it has to tighten up on price limits, or limits on how could posts customers can view, because of spam assaults.

Can you employ Threads on the internet?

Sure, you’ll be able to view posts and likewise publish from Threads.web.

How do you delete your Threads account?

You’ll be able to deactivate or delete your Threads account. Till the tip of 2023, you needed to delete your Instagram account, in response to Meta’s “Supplemental Privacy Policy” to delete your Threads account. Meta retains your knowledge for 30 days after the preliminary deletion request. In the event you change your thoughts, you’ll be able to cancel deletion inside 30 days.

How are you going to customise your Threads expertise?

Threads permits you to pin search phrases and tags as feeds. The corporate can also be testing a option to create customized feeds by including particular profiles and phrases to a brand new feed. For the longest time, the social community’s personal algorithmic “For You” feed was the default feed for customers, however now you’ll be able to set any feed to default.

Meta’s latest social platform additionally received impressed by rival social community Bluesky and made its personal model of “Starter Packs” — lists of individuals to observe based mostly on completely different themes. In March, Meta introduced that Threads has began testing a brand new characteristic that may enable individuals so as to add their pursuits to their profile, which might additionally direct customers to lively conversations in regards to the subject.

Are you able to DM individuals on Threads?

You’ll be able to’t ship a message to customers on the app. Instagram head Adam Mosseri mentioned that the aim is to “not construct one more inbox and as an alternative let individuals ship threads to different apps.”

Does Threads have an API?

After testing the API with choose companions for a couple of months, Threads lastly launched the general public API in June 2024. Builders can construct instruments to publish posts of customers and retrieve their very own posts and achieve insights about engagement. These instruments can’t but provide help to delete your posts.

Does that imply we could have third-party purchasers?

At the moment, Threads’ API has limitations, like not permitting builders to fetch timeline knowledge. So, it isn’t potential to create various purchasers for Threads in the mean time.

Is Threads a part of the fediverse?

Partially. Earlier in 2024, Threads began an experiment to let customers share their posts to the fediverse. So if customers activate fediverse sharing, individuals on different suitable ActivityPub networks like Mastodon can observe them and see their posts. Threads additionally permits customers on the fediverse to love Threads posts.

In 2024, Meta prolonged fediverse assist by including a means for Threads customers to see replies from fediverse customers on their posts, assist for posts generated by way of Threads API to be distributed on the fediverse, and likewise verify who’s following them from different servers.

In December 2024, the corporate began permitting Threads customers to observe profiles from different fediverse servers.

What are some options which can be at the moment lacking from Threads?

  • Full Fediverse integration
  • Scheduling posts (coming quickly)
  • Direct messages
  • Assist for lists
  • Assist for third-party purchasers

What are Threads’ knowledge assortment practices?

Since you are utilizing an Instagram account to log in to Threads, Meta says that “it’s a part of your Instagram account.” Customers have already raised questions in regards to the app’s knowledge assortment, given the privateness labels talked about within the App Retailer.

In reply to queries in regards to the app’s privateness labels on the App Retailer, Meta’s deputy chief privateness officer Rob Sherman mentioned final yr that these labels are much like the corporate’s different apps.

“The labels are much like the remainder of our apps, together with Instagram, in that our social apps obtain no matter information (together with the classes of knowledge listed within the App Retailer) you share within the app,” he mentioned in a Threads put up on the time.

This story initially revealed July 6, 2023, and is up to date usually.

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