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Threads is making a big change as it continues to grow exponentially as an alternative to Twitter. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri took to the micro-blogging platform to announce that they would be implementing rate limits to combat bots.
“Spam attacks have picked up so we’re going to have to get tighter on things like rate limits, which is going to mean more unintentionally limiting active people (false positives),” Mosseri posted on Threads. “If you get caught up those protections let us know.”
Rate limits are what Elon Musk implemented at the beginning of July “to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation.” At the time, Musk said the rate limits were only temporary at the extreme levels, but since then he has eased off and allowed users to view more tweets a day, particularly those users that are subscribed to Twitter Blue and “verified.”
After viewing limits were placed on Twitter, backlash ensued and Meta used the opportunity to launch its competing platform we now know as Threads. In less than a week, Threads had over 100M users sign up to the platform making a clear case that people were seeking an alternative to Twitter.
Threads makes it easy for users to sign up as all you need is an Instagram account. Usernames are transferred over and followers are alerted when someone has enabled their Threads profile.
Despite the viewing limits imposed on Threads users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s “very optimistic about how the Threads community is coming together.”
“Early growth was off the charts, but more importantly 10s of millions of people now come back daily. That’s way ahead of what we expected,” Zuckerberg shared on Monday, July 17.
He continued, “The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics and retention. It’ll take time to stabilize, but once we nail that, then we’ll focus on growing the community. We’ve run this playbook many times (FB, IG, Stories, Reels, etc) and I’m confident Threads is on a good path too.
See Mosseri and Zuckerberg’s Threads messages below.
