In the midst of a storm of Twitter outrage that burst into existence following Elon Musk's decision to temporarily limit the number of tweets users are allowed to view every day, Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Threads, a companion app to Instagram that provides an alternative to Twitter.
The new text-based platform, which Zuckerberg has said in several threads will be focused on fostering kindness, hit 10 million sign-ups in its first seven hours, according to the CEO.
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Threads has also garnered the support of a number of celebrities, from Jim Cramer to "Shark Tank" investor Mark Cuban.
"Hey @zuck, you sure you have to open this up to everyone? It’s pretty nice right now. Amazing people on here," Cuban, a regular critic of Musk's Twitter, wrote amid a slew of suggestions on ways to improve the new platform.
"The biggest problem Twitter has is lack of user control of the For You feed. It’s far left. First Seen. Make a FY feed that can be 'tuned' in real-time by the user and you win," Cuban wrote. "There is no Joy in discovery on social media today. Just the opposite. There is fear. Whoever Brings Joy to Discovery on Social Media Wins."
Cuban added that making the algorithm that powers users' feeds both visible and adjustable is the way in which Meta can beat out Twitter.
"Let me see my category weightings and adjust them. If I go down some rabbit Hole and doomscroll I don’t want my feed and FYP obliterated by crazies," he wrote. "I want to be able to reset my weightings by category. Or just fine-tune them so I can see things I want to see that day. Some days you are in the mood for baby memes. Some days you aren’t."
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This first version of Threads allows for posts up to 500 characters in length that can include photos, links and videos up to five minutes long.
And Zuckerberg is determined to run this new platform "differently" than Twitter, saying, "The goal is to keep it friendly as it expands. think it's possible and will ultimately be the key to its success. That's one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently."
Meta stock hit a 52-week high of $298.12 per share amid the anticipation of the coming launch July 5, but has since fallen slightly, opening July 6 at $295.89.
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