Threads, Meta's Twitter/X competitor and the company's first investment in decentralized social media, now makes it easier for users to control their Threads experience. After launching a customizable dashboard interface last week, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced Monday that the app is launching a feature that will allow users to signal what kinds of posts they want to see more of.
Mosseri explained in a post on Threads that users “swipe right on a post to like it, and swipe left to show they're not interested.” “We’ll use these signals to show you more posts like the ones you swiped right on and less posts like the ones you swiped left on.”
The idea of using swipe gestures to indicate interest is a user interface interaction reminiscent of dating apps like Tinder, but the ability to train the algorithm on what kinds of things people like allows Threads to adapt more quickly to user personalization. It can help you do that. ' This is the For You feed. TikTok, for example, uses a similar mechanism that allows users to mark videos as “not interested,” and X does the same for posts.
Threads' competitors have different approaches to how they deliver content. X uses a more traditional social media algorithm that leverages likes and engagement patterns along with other metrics to determine what kind of content people want to see. On the other hand, Bluesky, a startup originally incubated within Twitter (now We provide a “selection of algorithms” model. Instead, they can view the network's content the way they prefer.
However, a well-designed For You feed can increase engagement and time spent in the app. This is an area that Meta hopes to improve with Threads.
Meta's latest app currently has over 150 million monthly active users, but for comparison, Elon Musk said that X currently has 600 million monthly active users, 300 million of whom use the platform daily. I insist. (He did not say what portion of its user base consists of automated accounts or spam, and since ’s 7.2 million users, but more work is needed to catch up with X. We currently have less than 1 million monthly active users.
Threads first started testing a side swipe gesture to indicate interest in a post last March. Swiping in one direction will display a heart icon, while swiping in the other direction will display an eye icon with crossed lines. This is a symbol commonly used to “hide”. “or “hidden”.
For now, Threads says it will use swipes to help users personalize their feeds, but the signals gathered by Meta could serve a larger purpose over time. With enough data, swipes can help companies determine which posts are heavily “disliked” (swipe left) by the community and which are popular. This can help your app's For You algorithm improve faster.
