Richard Lawler
The legend @finkd lives.
Mark Zuckerberg logged in to his rarely-used Twitter account to post a quick joke on the day Instagram launched Threads, an app that is trying to be a lot like Twitter.
Richard Lawler
Jane Manchun Wong is working on Threads.
The leaker who’s uncovered so many features and unmentioned details in apps like Twitter and Instagram, now works for Meta on its new social platform.
That’s one way to keep her from finding and posting future Threads leaks; congratulations Jane!
Emma Roth
Time to... threet?
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri agrees with us that posts on Threads are “kind of” tweets, so maybe we can find a middle ground.
Screenshot by Ruben Salvadori / The Verge
The ‘volatility’ of Twitter under Elon Musk has opened a window to compete. It’s a ‘risky’ bet worth trying, says Instagram boss Adam Mosseri.
Alex Heath
Richard Lawler
Soon.
If you didn’t already know Instagram’s Threads app is close to launching, perhaps a post from Adam Mosseri will seal the deal.
Richard Lawler
If Instagram Threads is available for Android on day one, maybe we have Siri to thank.
Adam Mosseri is so sick of Apple’s disappointing assistant that he switched back to Android. But he wouldn’t risk missing out on Instagram’s new platform, Threads, just to use Google Assistant... would he?
Richard Lawler
RIP to the old Instagram Threads (2019 - 2021).
You’d be excused for noticing that the name of Meta’s new Twitter competitor is very familiar. It already launched a different clone app tied to Instagram under the same name in 2019.
Like Google Currents (which entered the Google Graveyard in 2014 and in 2023), Instagram’s Threads name is being recycled after the first iteration was a messaging platform made for “close sharing” that was supposed to do battle with Snapchat until it shut down at the end of 2021.
Hopefully, this version of Threads has a better outcome.
Wes Davis
The Government of Canada is pulling its advertising on Facebook.
Responding to Meta blocking news on its platforms there over a new law requiring platform owners to negotiate with and pay news publishers for content, Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez announced the country will no longer buy ads on Facebook:
We cannot continue paying advertising dollars to Meta while they refuse to pay their fair share to Canadian news organizations.
Two major Canadian firms, Quebecor and Cogeco Communications, also announced they and their subsidiaries are suspending advertising on Meta’s platforms.
Richard Lawler
Instagram Threads won’t be available in the EU at launch.
The Twitter alternative from Meta appears set to launch on July 6th, but the Irish Independent reports that Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has been in contact with the company about the new product and confirmed the launch won’t extend to the EU “at this point.”
Wes Davis and Richard Lawler
Jay Peters and Jon Porter
Wes Davis
Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads, briefly showed up on the Google Play app store today.
Twitter user Alessandro Paluzzi, a developer who’s been publishing leaks about Meta’s upcoming Twitter clone, tweeted early this morning that the app had been released, but it was taken down sometime later.
Paluzzi included screenshots showing the posting UI and the ability to login with Instagram.
The app is no longer available as of this writing.
Nilay Patel
“In no small part, Mastodon’s culture is exclusionary.”
The eponymous Bloonface recently shut down their Mastodon instance, with a blog post discussing in detail the current culture clash gripping the decentralized social network as various folks contend with the launch of Instagram Threads, which will eventually interoperate through the ActivityPub protocol.
[T]he people who are broadly “in charge” of Mastodon, as much as anyone is “in charge” of it, are those who are happy with it as is. So things like the follow UX do not matter to them, because they are already on big servers and have big follow lists already, so they have no insight into what new users go through. The new users have no real feedback mechanism, so they just leave and get frustrated, so things will never change.
To strain the analogy to breaking point; rather than a nice desktop login screen, a new user to Mastodon on pretty much anything except a big server gets presented with the equivalent of the blinking white-on-black text of a barebones Debian login screen. This is not fine. No wonder people left.
Why did the #TwitterMigration fail?
[Café Lob-On]
Jess Weatherbed
Meta thinks teens need help to stop using Facebook.
A new batch of parental supervision features have been created to protect minors on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.
The new tools allow parents to view how much time their child spends on Messenger, and who can interact with their account. Minors will also be encouraged to log off from scrolling Instagram Reels at night, and after spending 20 minutes on Facebook... which is adorable,
Wes Davis
Mark Zuckerberg wants more fans?
A write-up in The Washington Post says the Zuck’s latest attempt at image rehabilitation (remember the “only eating meat from animals he’d personally killed” phase?) is, in part, a bid to win over Musk stans.
Zuckerberg has appeared on podcasts hosted by provocateur Joe Rogan and AI researcher Lex Fridman, both popular among fans of Twitter owner Musk. He has posted sweaty action shots on Instagram displaying his jujitsu skills. And this week, he accepted Musk’s challenge to a cage fight after news reports on Meta creating a Twitter competitor.
But Zuckerberg has really ramped it up over the past year, one of the people said, courting the same “tech bros” who have been captivated by Musk — who is suddenly Zuckerberg’s competition in more ways than one.
The cage match between him and Musk may just be the most recent part of his new pitch, even before Instagram’s “sane” Twitter alternative arrives.
Richard Lawler
Facebook and Instagram were having some problems.
Over the last hour or so, the Facebook page failed to load, attempts to upload Instagram Stories failed with an error message, while some reported they couldn’t send or receive messages on WhatsApp and Messenger, and Downdetector showed spikes for all of Meta’s services.
Reached for comment, Meta comms director Andy Stone told The Verge:
We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
Things seem to be mostly back to normal, but we’ll keep an eye out. In the meantime, we also have some fresh advice about the supposedly wonderful opportunities available to people who log off.
Richard Lawler
Meta is rolling out Instagram Broadcast channels globally.
Not to be confused with WhatsApp’s recently added Channels feature or Instagram’s Twitter competitor that was recently shown to employees, Meta is rolling out the Telegram-like Broadcast Channels for use by everyone around the world.
As described below by Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, they’re also testing new features like moderators, a share to stories button, and the ability to take questions. But it’s still not available on the web yet, so you’ll need to install the app to get the updates from Zuckerberg & Co.
Emma Roth
Richard Lawler
Alex Heath
Jess Weatherbed
EU begins its latest crackdown on online content moderation.
The European Union has outlined 19 platforms that will be subject to stricter regulations under the upcoming Digital Services Act.
Unsurprisingly, it includes Amazon, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and other Google services, all of which have four months to comply with rules about harmful and illegal content. More surprisingly… so does Wikipedia.
Emma Roth
Meta layoffs hit London.
The employees at Meta’s Instagram office in London could either be cut or relocated as part of the company’s latest round of layoffs, according to a report from Bloomberg. That also means Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri is headed back to the US after moving to the UK last year.
After seven years at Snapchat, I finally learned the truth about why our most important apps seem destined to disappoint us.
Ellis Hamburger
Casey Newton