Meta Is Posting Your Threads on Facebook, Acknowledges You May Hate It

pcmag.com:

Remember back in the day when you could set it up so that your tweets automatically posted to Facebook? Facebook killed that functionality with an API crackdown in 2018, but it's revisiting the idea in a bid to drum up interest in its Twitter alternative, Threads. And a lot of people hate it.

Meta is taking advantage of the fact that it owns Facebook and Threads by serving up posts from Threads on people's Facebook feeds. You may have spotted these text-based updates in a carousel-like format.

"We’ve launched an update to make it easier for people to see the latest content from Threads directly on Facebook and Instagram," according to a post from Threads. "But we’re listening to feedback like yours as we continue to build on this."

There appears to be no way to opt out of the feature. The big issue is that a lot of folks follow and interact with people differently depending on their platform. For example, someone may use their Facebook profile for real-life friends and family only whereas they may use Threads or Twitter/X for interacting with professional contacts or totally different online communities.

Testing for this feature began in August with Instagram showing Threads posts. That makes a bit more sense since Instagram is already tightly integrated with Threads. Wherever these posts end up, this is a fairly obvious tactic to get better engagement on Threads, which started out hot but has cooled in recent months.

Since its launch, Threads has been increasing its functionality in hopes of driving engagement. That includes accessing Threads from the web along with better discoverability features and a free edit option. But it's still lagging compared to Twitter, despite that site's own downturn.

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