Meta Plans to Work on Boosting Retention on Threads After App Loses More Than Half of Its Users

Meta Platforms executives are heavily focused on boosting retention on their new Twitter rival Threads, after the app lost more than half of its users in the weeks following its buzzy launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday.

Retention of users on the text-based app was better than executives had expected, though it was “not perfect,” said Zuckerberg, speaking at an internal company town hall, the audio of which was heard by Reuters.

“Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We’re not there yet,” he said.

Zuckerberg said he considered the drop-off “normal” and expected retention to grow as the company adds more features to the app, including a desktop version and search functionality.

Meta is looking at adding more “retention-driving hooks” to entice users to return to the app, like “making sure people who are on the Instagram app can see important Threads,” said Chief Product Officer Chris Cox.

A company spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting.

The executives’ comments came a day after Meta wowed investors with a rosy revenue growth forecast, a sign of a comeback for a company that faced deep scepticism over its hefty spending on the metaverse last year as ad sales plummeted.

The disclosure sent Meta’s shares surging 8 percent on Thursday.

Zuckerberg told employees on the call that he believed the company’s work on the augmented and virtual reality technology that would power the metaverse was “not massively ahead of schedule, but on track.”

Meta, he added, needed to get started investing in that work ahead of rivals such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, given their years of experience building operating systems for existing products.

“That way, we have all the tools ready for when this is ready for prime time,” he said, predicting that mass adoption of metaverse technologies would take place in the 2030s.

Zuckerberg and Cox also highlighted the company’s release of an artificial intelligence model called Llama 2 this month, which it made freely available for commercial use to any developer whose services had fewer than 700 million users.

The model has received more than 150,000 download requests in the week since its release, Cox said.

Responding to a question on the proposed “cage match” against Elon Musk, Zuckerberg said he was “not sure if it’s going to come together.”

© Thomson Reuters 2023


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Meta’s ‘Friendly’ Threads Collides With Unfriendly Internet

Mark Zuckerberg has pitched Meta’s Twitter copycat app, Threads, as a “friendly” refuge for public discourse online, framing it in sharp distinction to the more adversarial Twitter which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

“We are definitely focusing on kindness and making this a friendly place,” Meta CEO Zuckerberg said on Wednesday, shortly after the service’s launch.

Maintaining that idealistic vision for Threads – which attracted more than 70 million users in its first two days – is another story.

To be sure, Meta Platforms is no newbie at managing the rage-baiting, smut-posting internet hordes. The company said it would hold users of the new Threads app to the same rules it maintains on its photo and video-sharing social media service, Instagram.

The Facebook and Instagram owner also has been actively embracing an algorithmic approach to serving up content, which gives it greater control over the type of fare that does well as it tries to steer more toward entertainment and away from the news.

However, by hooking up Threads with other social media services like Mastodon, and giving the appeal of microblogging to news junkies, politicians, and other fans of rhetorical combat, Meta is also courting fresh challenges with Threads and seeking to chart a new path through them.

For starters, the company will not extend its existing fact-checking program to Threads, spokesperson Christine Pai said in an emailed statement on Thursday. This eliminates a distinguishing feature of how Meta has managed misinformation on its other apps.

Pai added that posts on Facebook or Instagram rated as false by fact-checking partners – which include a unit at Reuters – will carry their labels over if posted on Threads too.

Asked by Reuters to explain why it was taking a different approach to misinformation on Threads, Meta declined to answer.

In a New York Times podcast on Thursday, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, acknowledged that Threads was more “supportive of public discourse” than Meta’s other services and therefore more inclined to draw a news-focused crowd, but said the company aimed to focus on lighter subjects like sports, music, fashion, and design.

Nevertheless, Meta’s ability to distance itself from the controversy was challenged immediately.

Within hours of launch, Threads accounts seen by Reuters were posting about the Illuminati and “billionaire satanists,” while other users compared each other to Nazis and battled over everything from gender identity to violence in the West Bank.

Conservative personalities, including the son of former US President Donald Trump, complained of censorship after labels appeared warning would-be followers that they had posted false information. Another Meta spokesperson said those labels were an error.

INTO THE FEDIVERSE

Further challenges in moderating content are in store once Meta links Threads to the so-called fediverse, where users from servers operated by other non-Meta entities will be able to communicate with Threads users. Meta’s Pai said Instagram’s rules would likewise apply to those users.

“If an account or server, or if we find many accounts from a particular server, is found violating our rules then they would be blocked from accessing Threads, meaning that server’s content would no longer appear on Threads and vice versa,” she said.

Still, researchers specializing in online media said the devil would be in the details of how Meta approaches those interactions.

Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and former head of security at Meta, posted on Threads that the company would face greater challenges in performing key types of content moderation enforcement without access to back-end data about users who post banned content.

“With federation, the metadata that big platforms use to tie accounts to a single actor or detect abusive behavior at scale isn’t available,” said Stamos. “This is going to make stopping spammers, troll farms, and economically driven abusers much harder.”

In his posts, he said he expected Threads to limit the visibility of fediverse servers with large numbers of abusive accounts and apply harsher penalties for those posting illegal materials like child pornography.

Even so, the interactions themselves raise challenges.

“There are some really weird complications that arise once you start to think about illegal stuff,” said Solomon Messing of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University. He cited examples like child exploitation, nonconsensual sexual imagery, and arms sales.

“If you run into that kind of material while you’re indexing content (from other servers), do you have a responsibility beyond just blocking it from Threads?” 

© Thomson Reuters 2023 


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Twitter Could Face Difficulties Showing Meta Stole Trade Secrets for Threads

Twitter‘s claim that Meta Platforms stole trade secrets to build its new microblogging site may be the first volley in a legal battle between the social media giants, but experts say Twitter would have to clear a high hurdle if it sues. 

In a letter sent on Wednesday, Twitter alleged that Meta used its trade secrets to develop its new social media platform, Threads, and demanded that it stop using the information. Twitter said that Meta had hired dozens of former Twitter employees, many of whom “improperly retained” devices and documents from the company, and said Meta “deliberately” assigned them to work on Threads.

It was unclear whether any lawsuit would be filed.

A spokesperson for Twitter did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a Threads post on Thursday that no one on the site’s engineering team is a former Twitter employee. 

Legal experts said that while many companies have accused competitors that hired former employees and have a similar product of stealing trade secrets, the cases are difficult to prove.

To win, a company needs to show its competitor took information that was economically valuable and which the company had taken “reasonable efforts” to keep secret, said Polk Wagner, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

But the question of what constitutes a “reasonable effort” can be tricky, he said.

“The courts are pretty clear that you can’t just wave your hands and say something is a trade secret. On the other hand, you don’t have to lock everything down so much that nobody can use the information,” Wagner said.

Designating ‘secrets’

Meta launched Threads on Wednesday in what could be the first real threat to Twitter, which has alienated many users and advertisers since billionaire Elon Musk bought the microblogging site last year. 

Threads shares some resemblance to Twitter, as do the numerous other social media sites that have cropped up in the last several months.

One element courts look at is whether a company made clear to employees that the specific information at issue was a trade secret.

Sharon Sandeen, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, said that companies have lost trade-secret cases when they claimed that employees were bound by broad agreements designating all the company’s information as confidential.

Courts have said that employees have no way of knowing from such sweeping language what is and is not confidential, she said. 

Companies often bring trade-secret cases only to find their claims are not as strong as they thought, experts said.

Sandeen pointed to the high-profile legal battle between Alphabet‘s Waymo self-driving vehicle unit and ride-share company Uber Technologies. The case began with allegations of thousands of stolen documents, and ended with a dispute over a small handful, she said.

Uber settled the case on the eve of trial for $245 million (nearly Rs. 2,000 crore) worth of its own shares.

While trials are rare in trade-secret cases, settlements are common, said Wagner.

“The incentives to settle in these sorts of cases are especially strong because nobody wants the secrets being discussed more than necessary,” he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023


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Meta’s Threads Emerges as First Real Threat to Twitter as It Racks Up Over 30 Million Users in 18 Hours

Meta‘s Threads racked up more than 30 million sign-ups within about 18 hours of its launch, emerging as the first real threat to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, as it took advantage of its access to billions of Instagram users and a similar look to that of its rival.

Dubbed as the “Twitter-Killer”, Threads was the top free app on Apple’s App Store in the UK and the US on Thursday. Its arrival comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Musk have traded barbs for months, even threatening to fight each other in a real-life mixed martial arts cage match in Las Vegas.

“The cage match has started, and Zuckerberg delivered a major blow. In many ways, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Meta: Stellar execution and an easy-to-navigate user interface,” Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said.

Numerous competitors to Twitter have sprung up following Musk’s $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,64,130 crore) purchase of the social media platform last year, which was followed by a series of chaotic decisions that have alienated both users and advertisers. Musk’s latest move involved limiting the number of tweets users can read per day.

Twitter’s stumbles make room for a well-funded competitor like Meta Platforms, analysts and experts said, particularly because of its access to Instagram users and its advertising strength.

“Meta’s release of Threads came at the perfect time to give it a fighting chance to unseat Twitter,” said Niklas Myhr, professor of marketing at Chapman University, referring to the turmoil at Twitter after it limited the number of tweets users can see.

“Threads will be off to a running start as it is built upon the Instagram platform with its massive user base and if users adopt Threads, advertisers will be following closely behind.”

Other competitors have found limited success. Mastodon, another Twitter-like app, has 1.7 million monthly active users, according to its website, while Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky has about 265,000 users.

Twitter had 229 million monthly active users in May 2022, according to a statement made before Musk’s buyout.

Threads has certain limitations

While Threads is a standalone app, users can log in using their Instagram credentials, which makes it an easy addition for Instagram’s more than 2 billion monthly active users.

Threads’ launch was clearly a first stab at a service as it currently lacks the bells and whistles of Twitter.

“There should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will,” Zuckerberg said on Threads, where he now has a million followers.

Threads does not have hashtags and keyword search functions, which means users cannot follow real-time events like on Twitter. It also does not yet have a direct messaging function and lacks a desktop version that certain users, such as business organizations, rely on.

Some users including tech reviewer Marques Brownlee posted about the need for a feed that only consists of the people one follows. Users currently have little control over the main feed.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, who was hired by Musk in May to shore up advertiser confidence, said in tweet on Thursday that “everyone’s voice matters” on the app. “We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”

Currently there are no ads on the Threads app and Zuckerberg said the company would only think about monetization once there was a clear path to 1 billion users.

Existing ad relationships from Instagram and Facebook should help Threads’ revenue, said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“Facebook is a less uncertain bet compared to Twitter and a bigger player in the ad market.”

Some analysts said Threads was reminiscent of Meta’s success in integrating crucial features of platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok in the case of Instagram’s Stories and Reels.

At least four brokerages raised their price target on Meta, whose shares have already more than doubled in value this year.

On Thursday, Meta shares were down 0.3 percent amid a broader market selloff, after rising 3 percent on Wednesday ahead of Threads’ launch.

The app is available in over 100 countries, but Bloomberg News reported that it won’t be launched in the European Union as of now as Meta works out how data sharing between the new platform and its Instagram app will be regulated.

© Thomson Reuters 2023 


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Meta’s Twitter-Rival Threads App Said to Skip Launch in EU

Facebook owner Meta‘s new Threads app, meant to rival Twitter, will not be available in the European Union when it launches Thursday because of regulatory concerns, a source close to the company said.

The app is seen as the biggest challenge yet to Twitter since the takeover by Elon Musk sent the social media platform, hugely popular with politicians and celebrities, into chaos.

A source close to Meta said Wednesday that the tech giant was holding back from a Threads release in the EU’s 27 countries as it sought clarity on the bloc’s Digital Markets Act that will come into full force next year.

The DMA is a landmark law that sets strict rules for the internet’s biggest companies in Europe.

One of those regulations prohibits platforms from sharing data across different services. It also restricts companies directing platform users to their own products.

The description of Threads on app stores in the United States indicated that a user’s personal data, including contact and geolocation information, will be collected and used for advertising purposes.

Meta has already run afoul of EU rules for its attempts to use data from WhatsApp to strengthen Instagram and Facebook, something European regulators forbade it from doing.

A spokesman for Ireland’s Data Protection Commission told the Irish Independent that Meta confirmed that it would not be releasing the app in Europe “at this point”.

Ireland is home to Meta’s EU headquarters, and the national regulator is in charge of oversight of the company in Europe.

Contacted by AFP, Meta did not immediately comment. 

Meta was one of seven companies, including Amazon and Apple, that informed the EU on Tuesday that they meet the threshold to come under the new rules when they come into force next year.


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Meta to Launch Threads App on July 6 as Twitter Restricts Access to Users

Meta Platforms plans to launch a microblogging app, Threads, days after Twitter executive chair Elon Musk announced a temporary cap on how many posts users can read on the social media site.

Threads, Instagram’s text-based conversation app, is expected to be released on Thursday and will allow users to follow the accounts they follow on the photo-sharing platform and keep the same username, a listing on Apple’s App Store showed.

The launch comes after Twitter announced a slate of restrictions on the app, including the need to be verified in order to use TweetDeck.

Musk’s latest announcements to address data scraping have sparked a fierce backlash from Twitter users and ad experts said it would undermine new CEO Linda Yaccarino, who started in the role last month.

Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on a similar launch on the Google Play Store.

Meanwhile, Twitter-like platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon saw a surge in users and activity soon after Musk announced the limits. Bluesky, launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and now in beta mode, said it saw “record high traffic” on Saturday and that it was temporarily pausing new sign-ups. Mastodon also saw its active user base swell by 110,000 on that day, its creator and CEO Eugen Rochko said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023


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