6 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Threads

Threads is the fastest-growing social media platform of all time, reaching 100 million users in just five days. The platform was launched by Meta to compete with Twitter after Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk and had a precipitous decline in users and quality. While it ties directly into Instagram and is built on the same technology, Threads is intended to be a town square for the internet. But can a town square thrive when it’s filled suddenly with millions of voices and moderated in the same way that made Instagram a place that was friendly for brands and few others?

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meta is testing view counts and pinned posts on Threads.

The view counts are interesting to me, especially given that the platform formerly known as Twitter launched them in late 2022. “View counts are interesting as I think if we were shipping Instagram, or Facebook, today, we would probably have them,” Mosseri added. “They give people a better sense of their reach, and generally more feedback is a good thing.”

Meta announced the rollout of polls and GIFs on Threads earlier on Thursday.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
If you don’t like seeing Threads posts on Instagram and Facebook, Meta says it’s “listening to feedback.”

That said, Meta has eyes on making Threads a billion-user social network, so I think we might just have to get used to seeing Threads posts in other Meta apps.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
More good new Threads features.

If you tap and hold on a post with a bunch of tagged people on the Threads mobile app, you’ll see a menu where you can follow everyone that’s mentioned, as shared by Instagram head Adam Mosseri. Handy!

You can also copy and paste media attachments when you’re crafting a Threads post on the web.

David Pierce
David Pierce
Today on The Vergecast: Threads’ news conundrum, and Google’s many many many trials.

Adam Mosseri has a lot of thoughts about Threads’ role in the news business. We have a lot of thoughts about his thoughts. We also have thoughts about the intense about-face in the Sonos v. Google speaker fight, the Apple Search Engine that wasn’t, and much more. We also have some CSS news.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
So is Threads into news or not?

Meta’s incomplete answers about news on Threads are coming up again due to recent events and how things are (increasingly not) working on the platform formerly known as Twitter. In a response to The Verge’s Mia Sato today after that edit button-adding update, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said it “won’t proactively recommend news content to people who don’t seek it out.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Threads just got an edit button, but an edit history isn’t in the cards right now.

Meta spokesperson Christine Pai just confirmed to me that the company currently doesn’t have plans to offer an edit history for its newly-added edit feature.

I’m disappointed that’s the case; edit histories, which you can find on other services like X / Twitter and iMessage, are really useful!

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Threads will never go the distance if it can’t serve Wario64.

Threads has been a lot more vibrant lately, but as highlighted by deals extraordinaire Wario64, it still has its issues. Hopefully Meta can address these niche but important problems — Wario64 and accounts like it can be a great resource!

Chris Welch
Chris Welch
Threads might not be focused on news, but here’s a great list of follows if you are.

If you’re a news junkie but your Threads “following” list is feeling a little thin three months after launch, take a look at this post kicked off by CNN’s Oliver Darcy. A bunch of journalists are chiming in with their respective beats and what type of content you can expect them to share on the platform.

Also, remember you can tap the bell icon at the upper right of the app (if you’re on mobile) to subscribe to the thread for 24 hours as other people share their own areas of coverage.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
We love a good home screen.

Inspired by X CEO Linda Yaccarino flashing her home screen during her Code Conference interview, many of my colleagues at The Verge have been sharing their own home screens on Threads.

The fools! Now I’ve collected them and put them into a gallery here for all to see. (Don’t worry, I included my own.)

Anyway, did you get in on this bit? Share a link to yours in the comments! Or don’t. I’m not your boss.

A screenshot of an iPhone homescreen.
A screenshot of an iPhone with a couple of widgets, several apps, and four apps in the dock.
A picture of an iOS home screen with only the top three rows occupied, by labeled folders full of apps. A four-square widget shows the weather.
A screenshot of an iOS homescreen. It’s a mix of apps, app folders, a calendar widget, and four apps in the dock.
A screenshot of an Android homescreen, with a widget at the top and five rows of apps and app folders. Search bar at the bottom.
A screenshot of an iOS home screen, with three rows of apps, and three apps in the dock.
A screenshot of an iOS homescreen, with two screen-spanning widgets at the top, one four-app widget on the bottom left and four apps on the bottom right. Four apps in the dock.
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Alex Cranz loves weather.
Screenshot: Alex Cranz
Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
A delayed Woj bomb.

Threads may have gotten off to a strong start, but it’s still far behind as a source of real-time news, particularly for sports fans. The latest example? ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski “forgot” to post some huge NBA news on Threads, after it broke hours earlier on X.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Threads on the web now has a notification dot.

Sometime Wednesday morning, Threads on the web started showing a little red dot over the notifications tab. The notification dot had been a big omission to the web experience, so I’m glad Meta added it in.

A screenshot showing the Threads navigation bar on the web.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Threads on the web might be getting quote posts soon.

Adam Mosseri says he tested the feature out on Wednesday for a quote post. Quote posts are one of the biggest omissions from the Threads web experience, so I’m really hoping it launches soon.

Now we just need Threads to not default to the “For You” feed every time I open it up.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Threads doesn’t show anything when you search for “covid.”

Meta’s Threads just got proper search, but Taylor Lorenz at The Washington Post found that it doesn’t show results for some terms related to covid and vaccines as well as terms like “sex,” “nude,” and “gore.”

From the piece:

“The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content,” the statement said, adding that the company will add search functionality for terms only “once we are confident in the quality of the results.”

That said, as my colleague Wes Davis found, as you’re typing in terms like “covid” or “covid-19,” you might see a prompt pointing you to the CDC’s website. But if you hit enter to search for those terms directly, the results page will still be blank.

Update September 11th, 8:37PM ET: Added details about CDC prompt.

Nilay Patel
Nilay Patel
Sign of the times: Phil Schiller posting about an Apple event on Threads.

Apple’s Phil Schiller deleted his Twitter account a while ago and then quietly joined Threads when it launched. He’s now posted about the just-announced September event on Meta’s platform, which you are free to interpret any way you wish.

David Pierce
David Pierce
Come watch the Vergecast crew solve Sony’s problems and invent the hate-click tracker.

We just want to know if you’re clicking or you’re hate-clicking! That’s the only reason we’re asking for constant always-on access to your microphone and trying to scan your iris and follow you around the web! We promise!

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meta really wants you to know that it’s going to do fediverse stuff on Threads.

I saw this post from Dare Obasanjo highlighting Meta’s on-Threads message about its commitment to the fediverse. You can see the message yourself by going to somebody’s profile and clicking the “threads.net” bubble.

Meta has already taken a small fediverse step, and I’m looking forward to seeing the eventual support for platforms like Mastodon. It can be the new thing we all beg for now that web Threads is live.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meta knows some features are missing from Threads on the web.

“This is an early v1,” Tom Bender, a PM on the Threads team, said in a post. “We’re painfully aware of the feature gaps and it’s going to improve quickly.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Threads on the web seems to be rolling out widely.

A bunch of my colleagues at The Verge have just gotten access, so check threads.net to see if you can post from the web, too. I should warn you that the web app isn’t quite as robust as the mobile app — there’s no notification dot when you have notifications! — but it works well enough.

Threads on the web is hereThreads on the web is here
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Zuck reiterates that Threads on the web is coming soon.

He replied to me this morning to say exactly that — well, using emoji.

He said on August 4th that the feature would be arriving in “the next few weeks.” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said this week that the web version will be ready “soon” but that it “needs more work.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Did you know you can kinda tweet from Threads?

Learned this thanks to a Chris Messina post on Threads. On my iPhone, when I have both Threads and the X / Twitter app installed, there’s an option to send a Threads post to X from the paper airplane icon. I guess that’s one way to try and get more people using Threads.

A screenshot of the share sheet on Threads.
A screenshot of a draft tweet in X / Twitter.
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Get to this screenshot by tapping the paper airplane icon in Threads. When you tap the tweet / X button...
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Instagram’s Threads has lost almost 80 percent of its daily active Android users.

A blog post by analytics firm Similarweb says data from the Android Threads app show the social network has fallen to 10.3 million daily active Android users as of August 7th. That’s down from a July 7th peak of 49.3 million.

Earlier this month, both Gizmodo and CNN cited Similarweb data while reporting the Threads slump. Whether Threads could still go the distance remains to be seen, but Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is keeping a positive face for investors.

Jacob Kastrenakes
Jacob Kastrenakes
Some highlights from CNBC’s interview with X CEO Linda Yaccarino:

-Yaccarino said she has “autonomy” under Elon. “[He] focuses on new technology ... and I’m responsible for the rest.”

-She demurred on the Musk v Zuckerberg fight. “We’ll see if that cage match really does happen.”

-But she said Elon really is training for it. “I’ve had a front row seat of witnessing that.”

-As for Threads, she thinks Meta’s rival is skating to where the puck already is. “They may be building to what Twitter was ... and we’re focused on what X will be.”

How to verify your Threads account using your Mastodon profileHow to verify your Threads account using your Mastodon profile
Jay Peters and Barbara Krasnoff
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
I have unilaterally decided Alex is wrong and just changed “post” to “tweet.”

It hit me that Twitter is dead, so the word “tweet” is fair game now! It wasn’t even Twitter’s word to begin with. So I have reversed her reversal, editing this just-published post of mine four times to just call them tweets. Zuck tweeted. Mosseri tweeted. I will be tweeting again too, just as soon as Zuck and Mosseri let me tweet from the web!