This, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, declared the other day as the beginning of a new "more independent" phase in the life of Threads, which might eventually-maybe, just maybe-end up leading to the departure from parent service Instagram.

Maybe.
Wow, people on Threads-an absolutely different platform facilitating an absolutely different use case compared to Instagram-don't want to follow the same accounts exactly on both platforms. Who'd have guessed?

This has always been an issue with Threads-tied too closely to Instagram. In this light, you are recommended posts based on a profile you have interacted with in IG. Which can be annoying because each of them is so different. For instance, the profiles that I'm following on Twitter don't even come close to those that I interact with on Facebook, and the same goes with pretty much every other app, really-it's somewhat surprising that Mosseri's treating this like it's a revelation of sorts.

Still, though, it's also worth noting that Threads will still be drawing upon your IG graph to make post recommendations. Mosseri's saying only that the service is taking the IG-related recommendations out of your onboarding experience, but is looking to continue using what it knows about you from Instagram in building your "For you" feed. Which means that you'll still get Instagram-related post recommendations there.

That which, in my opinion, and experience, is not the way that Threads should go, but then again, Threads has been able to grow so rapidly because of its linkage to IG. And Meta's real interest is the numbers going up, so it's hard to argue that Threads might be on the wrong track as it continues to gain growth momentum.

Indeed, Mosseri also noted today that over 15 million people signed up for the app this month, two weeks short of occurring. At this rate if all those new accounts are regular users, Threads will be set to reach the number of X's sometime within a few months into the new year.

And while many have knocked Threads' content approach, especially its anti-politics bias, it certainly draws the line against some very important truths. But by the numbers, at least, people are talking. And even if most of those users come from X, alienated by Elon Musk's changes to that app, the data, at least for now, would suggest that Threads is on the right track. It feels like it still has some refinement to go.

Indeed, a problem with Threads is Meta's reluctance towards political content while still amplifying recommended content well behind time, which often makes your timeline feel stale, as opposed to having your finger on the pulse of the moment, as Twitter felt at peak.
The idea, Will Oremus notes, is to make Threads like "TikTok for text," where it calculates that showing you the most entertaining content will build engagement, rather than the most relevant. But that's not what a lot of people seem to want from a text-based social app.

But it is illustrative of the broader trends in social media engagement-that apps have pivoted from showing you content based on your social graph to using algorithms to show you the most engaging, entertaining content based on what their systems understand of your interests. This came along with the advent of TikTok, bringing to light that algorithms are smart enough to understand user interest and that the users themselves don't actually have to follow any profiles anymore because the system won't need your explicit input to realize what you want to see more of.

And that has worked well into TikTok, which is only giving you the most fun video clips, and that has also worked well for Facebook and IG. But it seems Threads needs a more unique focus on real-time updates and posts and the most relevant now as opposed to being one of the most engaging in general.

Using post engagement as a proxy means you can only post content in retrospect, and that doesn't work for breaking news. Neither does a restriction on "political" content, and it still feels like Threads needs to refine its balance on both elements if it wants to supplant Twitter, and become a new home for that type of activity.

Although that also presumes that is Meta's intent, which isn't necessarily accurate. Meta has claimed it wants to compete with X on Threads, but also said it wants Threads to be a "more friendly" version of that experience.

Which, again, points to that "TikTok of Text" approach, where, really, Meta wants all the engagement, but none of the issues that come with a more news-based approach, including more challenging moderation, increased risk of misinformation, concerns around manipulation, etc.

And so, seriously speaking, it's up to Meta of exactly how it wants to do this. However, it seems that Bluesky and so forth is only just now gaining traction because of the failure of Threads as a real-time news source, which was highlighted on Election Day.

And while Bluesky has only 15 million users in total, that's still 15 million people that may well have been Threads users had it gotten its approach right.

And it feels like Threads is sitting on a major opportunity as a real-time news and information source.

X has grown too biased in this regard, and does not offer any real safeguards around misinformation (Community Notes are not good enough in that regard), while Bluesky is just too small, although as noted above, it's growing. But currently, Threads has the best chance of being that real time news discussion space. But it will also require Meta to take on a level of risk in its approach.

In the post-election period, I do think Meta will eventually change tack, and it's interesting to see it take the first steps in re-aligning Threads around its own, separate use case.

But really, that's what needs to happen, with Meta putting more focus on real-time relevance versus light entertainment.