My partner just created her #Threads account and the account that showed up on top as suggestion to follow was mine. However, I don't have a Threads account.
Basically, anyone who has an Instagram account, #Meta is automatically creating a shadow account for them and also allowing users to follow those shadow accounts. My partner had tonnes of follow requests as soon as she made the account.
It’s not forced on you. If you don’t download Threads and log in, you’re not on threads.
Although that’s technically true, it is clear what Meta is doing here (and even if most may know that the company sucks, I personally feel it is important report on things like that). Meta’s tactics should create a hype making people believe there are substantially more users than there actually are. The mass of people won’t recognize (or even care?) what’s going on I’m afraid.
What is Meta doing here? I’m not clear on what the point being made is.
If you’re insinuating that they are doing this to artificially inflate user counts, why wouldn’t they be reporting about how there are 2+ billion threads users in the first week?
They don’t need to manufacture hype - like Meta or not, in the first 96 hours they brought in almost 100 million users. Thats a third of Twitter’s entire active user base, in less than a week.
If it’s so obvious why can’t you state it clearly?
It seems like the insinuation is that Threads is artificially inflating user counts with “shadow accounts” that aren’t real - however it’s been clearly determined that they aren’t.
So, if it’s not that, then, again… what’s the “so obvious” point I’m missing?
Yeah, they aren’t creating shadow accounts. For a while if you logged into threads you even got a badge on your Instagram page with your sign up number on Threads.
Super shitty response to the question you still haven’t given an answer to, after I reiterated again what my understanding of the “so obvious” point was.
Contrast that to this thread here - both of you have made that in this thread in a few hours alone, and I’m knocking up against that.
It’s a smart wager to assume that the number of users is inflated. Even if you didn’t know the bit about shadow accounts, that ratio kinda fails the sniff test.
The lemmy instance I’m on (lemm.ee) has 10.2k users and 32.1k comments - a near identical ratio. By that logic are user counts on my Lemmy instance inflated?
Why does a 3:1 ratio of posts:users not pass the sniff test?
Are you assuming a linear relationship to each user and number of posts? Some users will create an account and post once or not at all, other users will create an account and post an above-average number of posts.
And again, there are no shadow accounts - even the OP agrees to this understanding.
EDIT: expanding on this further, if you were to use a more accurate comparison which would be posts on Lemmy as opposed to comments, there are 4.53k posts and 10.2k users, a 1:2 ratio of posts to users on my instance.
Is this because my Lemmy instance is flooded with fake users, or simply because a lot of people like to lurk/consume content and not post their own?
@312 >Why does a 3:1 ratio of posts:users not pass the sniff test?
It’s genuinely odd for a federated social platform with genuine users. Over here at bae.st, we have a somewhat small number of users who make…lots of posts. This might be different for lemmy folk, but “creating an account and posting once or twice” is extremely odd behavior where I am.
>And again, there are no shadow accounts - even the OP agrees to this understanding.
Sounds nitpicky, but you reddit types like to be nitpicky so eh.
Also, because you’ve done it twice while I was typing up this post: a good chunk of instances do not respect edits/deletions: an edit looks like an entirely new post on quite a lot of platforms. Keep it in mind in the future.
It’s genuinely odd for a federated social platform with genuine users
lemmy.world, one of the largest instances, is 66.3k posts and 100k users, a 0.6:1 ratio, again significantly less than the purported ratio on Threads.
an edit looks like an entirely new post on quite a lot of platforms
Posts on Threads aren’t editable. They are editable on Lemmy. So if anything, would that not be… inflating Lemmy’s post count? I’m not sure what argument you’re trying to make here.
Although that’s technically true, it is clear what Meta is doing here (and even if most may know that the company sucks, I personally feel it is important report on things like that). Meta’s tactics should create a hype making people believe there are substantially more users than there actually are. The mass of people won’t recognize (or even care?) what’s going on I’m afraid.
What is Meta doing here? I’m not clear on what the point being made is.
If you’re insinuating that they are doing this to artificially inflate user counts, why wouldn’t they be reporting about how there are 2+ billion threads users in the first week?
They don’t need to manufacture hype - like Meta or not, in the first 96 hours they brought in almost 100 million users. Thats a third of Twitter’s entire active user base, in less than a week.
It seems we agree to disagree. The point I make is pretty clear, and it doesn’t make sense if you repeating your arvuments over and over again.
But the point you’re making isn’t clear which is why I asked if you could clarify - what is the point you’re making?
@0x815@feddit.de seems pretty clear to me buddy. I’m not sure what you aren’t getting.
If it’s so obvious why can’t you state it clearly?
It seems like the insinuation is that Threads is artificially inflating user counts with “shadow accounts” that aren’t real - however it’s been clearly determined that they aren’t.
So, if it’s not that, then, again… what’s the “so obvious” point I’m missing?
Yeah, they aren’t creating shadow accounts. For a while if you logged into threads you even got a badge on your Instagram page with your sign up number on Threads.
Oh god, I tire of you. Either trolling or just really dense. I’m going to block you and move on. I suggest you do the same. Jesus christ.
Super shitty response to the question you still haven’t given an answer to, after I reiterated again what my understanding of the “so obvious” point was.
Whatever you want dude, happy to block you.
@0x815 @312 You can make this argument evaporate by asking: how active are the people *on* Threads? How many posts are there?
If there’s not so many, but tons of users, that means that there’s not tons of “real” users.
The last update to my knowledge that included post counts was 30M users, 95M posts.
Edit to include reference: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/6/23786108/threads-internal-activity-data-exclusive-instagram-meta
@312 So what, an average of 3 posts a person?
Contrast that to this thread here - both of you have made that in this thread in a few hours alone, and I’m knocking up against that.
It’s a smart wager to assume that the number of users is inflated. Even if you didn’t know the bit about shadow accounts, that ratio kinda fails the sniff test.
The lemmy instance I’m on (lemm.ee) has 10.2k users and 32.1k comments - a near identical ratio. By that logic are user counts on my Lemmy instance inflated?
Why does a 3:1 ratio of posts:users not pass the sniff test?
Are you assuming a linear relationship to each user and number of posts? Some users will create an account and post once or not at all, other users will create an account and post an above-average number of posts.
And again, there are no shadow accounts - even the OP agrees to this understanding.
EDIT: expanding on this further, if you were to use a more accurate comparison which would be posts on Lemmy as opposed to comments, there are 4.53k posts and 10.2k users, a 1:2 ratio of posts to users on my instance.
Is this because my Lemmy instance is flooded with fake users, or simply because a lot of people like to lurk/consume content and not post their own?
@312 >Why does a 3:1 ratio of posts:users not pass the sniff test?
It’s genuinely odd for a federated social platform with genuine users. Over here at bae.st, we have a somewhat small number of users who make…lots of posts. This might be different for lemmy folk, but “creating an account and posting once or twice” is extremely odd behavior where I am.
>And again, there are no shadow accounts - even the OP agrees to this understanding.
Sounds nitpicky, but you reddit types like to be nitpicky so eh.
Also, because you’ve done it twice while I was typing up this post: a good chunk of instances do not respect edits/deletions: an edit looks like an entirely new post on quite a lot of platforms. Keep it in mind in the future.
lemmy.world, one of the largest instances, is 66.3k posts and 100k users, a 0.6:1 ratio, again significantly less than the purported ratio on Threads.
Posts on Threads aren’t editable. They are editable on Lemmy. So if anything, would that not be… inflating Lemmy’s post count? I’m not sure what argument you’re trying to make here.
??? Is that supposed to be an insult?
Do you have any source for that?