THREADS - Meta / Facebook's TWITTER Killer - 150M+ Users - Add Your @

[neonzx]

What does this mean? Threads has access to the contacts app on my phone? Or just that Threads knows with whom I interact while using Threads?

Data that "threads" steals from your phone:

Health & Fitness
Financial Info
Contact Info
User Content
Browsing History
Usage Data
Diagnostics
Purchases
Location
Contacts
Search History
Identifiers
Sensitive Info
Other Data

I don't think that this really answers the question.

People refer to "Instagram contacts," for instance, which aren't necessarily the same as the information on the iphone/Mac contacts app. On an iPhone, for instance, you can manage which apps can access your contacts app. My seldom-used Instagram account doesn't have access to my contacts.

And I haven't (yet) heard that the Threads app won't work unless it's given access to the information in a user's contacts app.

Did you read the linked article detailing what information it can harvest from your phone? (granted, it is a bigger problem with iPhones since on them ONE can't restrict an app to what it has access to-- on Android we can turn permissions off on what an each app can access).

YES, they are talking about PHONE contacts, not instagram contacts.

[tek]

Nothing like an unscaled graph to get a clear message across

d-1.jpg (155.81 KiB) Viewed 1246 times

[RTH10260]

Aat that heart rate we will soon have a dead patient

[much ado]

The original image, unclipped, is scaled by 'rank', which seems to be rank by traffic to that domain.



Here's a link to the current raw data...

https://radar.cloudflare.com/domains

[chancery]

Did you read the linked article detailing what information it can harvest from your phone? (granted, it is a bigger problem with iPhones since on them ONE can't restrict an app to what it has access to-- on Android we can turn permissions off on what an each app can access).

YES, they are talking about PHONE contacts, not instagram contacts.

Yes, I did, and it strikes me as ambiguous. Maybe you're correct, but the ArsTechnica article doesn't give enough detail to be sure.

For instance, it says, in the Threads discussion,

Do you have the Facebook or Instagram app on your phone? Keep in mind that this data collection by Meta is comparable to the data those apps collect about you.

I have the Instagram app, and it's a user option to give it access to my contacts app.

Also, it's been my experience that this behavior is typical of iPhone apps; the user can deny access to the contacts app.

[raison de arizona]

I dunno how this meshes with reality, but here is what my iPhone shows Threads has access to. It definitely has access to my Instagram contact list though.

IMG_5292.png (67.63 KiB) Viewed 1217 times

[somerset]

A couple of thoughts here:

Is there really that much difference between what Threads *tries* to collect and what Twitter *tries* to collect?

Both platforms try to collect everything mentioned, but that doesn't mean they can get it. For example, iOS blocks much of this unless you specifically allow it.

[somerset]

Did you read the linked article detailing what information it can harvest from your phone? (granted, it is a bigger problem with iPhones since on them ONE can't restrict an app to what it has access to-- on Android we can turn permissions off on what an each app can access).

YES, they are talking about PHONE contacts, not instagram contacts.

?????

You can control what every app has access to.

[bob]

The original image, unclipped, is scaled by 'rank', which seems to be rank by traffic to that domain.

So, in January, Twitter was the 32nd most visited site, and in July it dropped all the way to ... 40th.

[much ado]

The original image, unclipped, is scaled by 'rank', which seems to be rank by traffic to that domain.

So, in January, Twitter was the 32nd most visited site, and in July it dropped all the way to ... 40th.

Yeah, hard to get much Schadenfreude from that.

(I did try, though.)

[Reality Check]

The original image, unclipped, is scaled by 'rank', which seems to be rank by traffic to that domain.

So, in January, Twitter was the 32nd most visited site, and in July it dropped all the way to ... 40th.

Also, how much of the drop was due to the fact that for many of us Twitter just flat out did not work consistently after July 1?

[Luke]

Since Elmo seems to be randomly not allowing Threads info on the bird site, wanted to extend an invitation to post your Threads handle here. Use members only if you want to restrict it somewhat.

[Shizzle Popped]

I don't trust any of the phone/app/service providers to do what they're supposed to do. Mrs. Shizzle worked in privacy at one of the fore mentioned providers for a while and the marketing lawyers were always trying to get around the objections of the privacy lawyers. They usually got their way. Here in the good old U S of A the regulations are slack and the penalties are frequently just a slap on the wrist so the potential profit makes it worth the risk for a lot of companies.

I've never been much of a social media person to begin with but Facebook has a long history of playing loose and fast with the privacy rules so my default is that I don't trust a word they say. I think they've gotten blasted enough for it that they're somewhat better now than they once were but that's just a relative comparison. I can't say that I've ever trusted Twitter to do the right thing either so it's not just Facebook, in my mind.

Many years ago I got fed up with Facebook and deleted my account. However, after we moved into the current house about five years ago I activated a new account because the subdivision HOA and residents communicate through a Facebook group. I did this on my phone (an Android at the time) and it wanted to read my contacts to help populate my Friends list. I told it not to. Within a week I started getting a friend suggestion for the husband of a former coworker. This was strictly a work contact from several years ago who had never been a Facebook friend. I did have her personal cell number in my contact list and that's the only way Facebook could have made that connection. So the rat bastards read my contact list even though I told them not to.

[Lansdowne]

Within a week I started getting a friend suggestion for the husband of a former coworker. This was strictly a work contact from several years ago who had never been a Facebook friend. I did have her personal cell number in my contact list and that's the only way Facebook could have made that connection. So the rat bastards read my contact list even though I told them not to.

Or presumably, the rat bastards had your number because they copied her contact list "several years ago", which she had allowed, and when you created your account with your own number the system went THIS IS ONE WE KNOW .

[raison de arizona]

[Foggy]

Honestly, can't we have something that isn't owned by Mark Zuckerberg?

'Cuz I'm out.

[pipistrelle]

Honestly, can't we have something that isn't owned by Mark Zuckerberg?

Twitter.

[raison de arizona]

[RTH10260]

How long until Elon throws the towel in and sells Twitter to Zuckerberg and the two platforms merge?

[AndyinPA]

[Dave from down under]

Does Zuckerberg have a spare $2.50 to pay for the Norwegian Blue?

[Foggy]

Yeah.

I read once that if'n Bill Gates dropped his wallet, and he had $10,000 in it, it wasn't worth his time to turn around and pick it up, because he would make more than $10,000 while he did it. So he could just stroll on ...

Edit: I say this as an Earthling who was on a riding lawnmower at my parents' house carefully mowing their grass, and I managed to, you guessed it, mow my own wallet. First pass, it fell out of my back pocket, unbeknownst to me. Second pass, confetti (or for New Yorkers, excelsior). Third pass, "What's all that shredded paper on the lawn?"

[Sam the Centipede]

I Within a week I started getting a friend suggestion for the husband of a former coworker. This was strictly a work contact from several years ago who had never been a Facebook friend.

I recall there were similar problems some years ago about The Algorithm in Facebook making undesirable friend suggestions. Psychologists, therapists, etc. were being linked to clients' partners, relatives, etc. via indirect A->B->C->D connections where each individual connection might be appropriate but the A->D connection was not. So a victim of domestic abuse might be offered his/her abuser or vice versa.

There's so much data around that clever software can deduce all manner of connections.

[neeneko]

I recall there were similar problems some years ago about The Algorithm in Facebook making undesirable friend suggestions. Psychologists, therapists, etc. were being linked to clients' partners, relatives, etc. via indirect A->B->C->D connections where each individual connection might be appropriate but the A->D connection was not. So a victim of domestic abuse might be offered his/her abuser or vice versa.

Heh. Just last week I had to ask my partner 'hey, isn't XYZ your therapist? Facebook just suggested them to me'... and I make a rather hard rule of NOT interacting with their therapists.

[Luke]

Now 150M downloads. Have they made it for desktop yet? Haven't had time to look. MAGAts & GOP (Gym Jordan) are doing their best to tank it, but even the Gateway House of Boys being ANGRY isn't working. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/0 ... 0-million/

Reuters reported:

“Twitter’s cash flow remains negative because of a nearly 50% drop in advertising revenue and a heavy debt load, Elon Musk said on Saturday, falling short of his expectation in March that Twitter could reach cash flow positive by June. ‘Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else’, Musk said in a tweet replying to suggestions on recapitalization. Musk said on Sunday in another tweet that Twitter did not see the increase in advertising revenue that had been expected in June, adding, ‘July is a bit more promising’.”

Instagram Threads now has one-fifth the weekly active user base of Twitter
Sarah Perez @sarahintampa / 6:32 PM EDT•July 16, 2023

Instagram Threads’ launch has been an overnight success, topping 100 million users within days of its arrival. Now, new data indicates the app has already achieved one-fifth of the weekly active user base of Twitter worldwide and 86 times the weekly active user base of the largest Twitter rival in the U.S., Truth Social, which had a weekly active user base of 1 million as of last week. The new insights, provided by app intelligence firm data.ai, follow another analysis of Threads’ early traction, which had demonstrated a slight dip in early usage. According to the app intelligence firm Sensor Tower late last week, Threads’ daily active users declined on Tuesday and Wednesday — down around 20% from Saturday. Time spent was also down by 50%, from 20 minutes to 10 minutes, the firm said, as reported by CNBC.

But momentum for Threads is far from over, data.ai points out. The app has now achieved over 150 million downloads, by its current estimates — which is 5.5 times faster than Niantic’s Pokémon GO, which had held the record for largest app launch title since its July 2016 debut. Data.ai also shared other new insights about the nature of Threads’ audience, finding that the Twitter rival had attracted an audience of around 93 million active users globally during its first partial week of availability, ahead of the official announcement of its 100 million signups milestone on July 10.

The firm also found that India, not the U.S., is leading in terms of downloads of the new app, accounting for 33% of global downloads. It’s followed by Brazil (22%), then the U.S. (16%), and finally Mexico and Japan, at 8% and 5%, respectively. Threads, however, is not available in the EU at this time due to regulatory hurdles related to privacy concerns and data collection practices. Meta even recently began preventing EU users from working around the block on Threads by way of VPNs.

A few days ago, Threads released its first major update since its launch, bringing support for iOS 17, now available as a public beta, among other smaller changes. Still ahead for the app are larger improvements like a following feed, an edit button, multi-account support and integration with ActivityPub, the protocol powering the popular, decentralized Twitter alternative Mastodon.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/16/insta ... f-twitter/