Threads! Is It Worth It?

Yesterday saw a mad rush as many people decided to join up to Meta's alternative to Twitter which they've appropriately named Threads.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, Threads gained 30m signups in a single day notwithstanding the fact that right now it is not accessible to the European Union due to their strict rules regarding privacy.

Naturally, I was curious about what was being marketed as the challenger that could finally knock off Twitter so after a bit of hesitation, I too, decided to join the rush.

Picture of the process of signing up to Threads!

Having used it for just over a day, I can say there are some things I'm impressed with and some things that I am concerned about, which I am sure will be fixed in later updates.

Sign Up Process!

This process was actually outrageously simple. If you have an Instagram account, it was as simple as linking it to Threads in order to create your Threads account. The simplicity of this I think contributed to its amazing Day 1 success. If you don't have an Instagram, I think you'd have to create one in order to create a Threads account but that's minimal hassle as well so in terms of this process, it's a massive tick!

Followers/Following! I do not comment on this aspect lightly at all. As part of the sign-up process, you are encouraged to connect to those who you follow and encourage them to come across. I find that this is a sneaky but clever way to try and get more people across. Where the trouble starts is; How many messages are those I follow getting encouraging them to come across to Threads?

The above issue could come across as those I follow getting spammed but then there's more; What if you follow someone who could be a fake account?

Out of respect, I decided to follow naturally as opposed to force-follow.

Then the next challenge is, how do you actually acquire followers on Threads? Obviously, you need to have good content but then you need to comment a lot on other threads but already I'm seeing the sort of problem that I'm beginning to come across on Instagram.

I have 2 people who follow me (at the time of writing). Are these genuine profiles or are these the sort of fake profiles I am starting to see more of on Instagram?

Instagram has always had a problem with fake profiles, which was one I've avoided for a long time but now I'm starting to see many questionable profiles following me on there and what I wonder is; Will the same problem that occurs on Instagram play out on Threads?

At this point I'm open-minded but given they've never fully been able to address fake profiles, I am not expecting much change on that front here.

Interface/Use of Platform! It is the least complex interface that I have come across. You scroll, find a thread, and comment. It also borrows heavily from Twitter regarding likes, reposting, quotes and sharing. For me, its simplicity may well be its biggest benefit and so far, you don't have to scroll through endless advertisements to find the content of those you follow and there are no blasted read limits which is a massive improvement.

The only downside so far is that when using hashtags, unfortunately, they don't link to other content that uses the same hashtag and you cannot search for content by hashtag. That makes it very difficult to find the content that you are looking for, and to see what others are saying about the same topic. This is an area that needs improvement.

Deletion Process!

This is not one I intend on using given there is an unexpected twist to it. If you decide that Threads isn't for you and choose to delete it, it, unfortunately, deletes your Instagram Account as well. That in my humble opinion is absolute madness and where they have perhaps made a horrible misjudgement. I am not saying that linking to Instagram is necessarily a bad thing but to then turn around and say that if you want to get rid of Threads, you get rid of your Instagram Account, that is essentially forcing people to stay on Threads and I don't think that should ever form a social media policy.

They can absolutely do better than this and really this is the first thing that should be fixed.

Overall Thought! Look, I was sceptical when this was released and I downloaded it on recommendation from a friend however so far I have been pleasantly surprised. Its similarity to Twitter makes it a lot easier to navigate and doesn't require learning about any new features. I do harbour concerns about the whole "fake followers" issue while I think the deletion process is frankly ridiculous. The one big plus so far is that it has a far less toxic atmosphere than Twitter does which at the moment, I'm putting down to the novelty of a new platform. It's when that novelty wears off that we're going to start to see what Threads is really like but for now, I am cautiously optimistic that it will indeed be a challenger to Twitter. There is room for improvement but as far as a basic starting point, it goes alright.