The Threads logo is displayed on a smartphone with the Twitter logo in the background. Threads is the new social network from Meta Platforms that was launched on July 5, 2023.
Omar Marques | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Meta‘s new text-based social media app Threads launched a highly requested new feature Tuesday: a “Following” tab.
The new tab allows users to see chronological posts from people they follow instead of the less cohesive, algorithmically curated content that appears in the “For you” feed. Many users have been asking Meta executives such as CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri for the feature since Threads first launched earlier this month.
“Ask and you shall receive,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post Tuesday.
Meta’s Threads added a chronological Following feed
Meta said Tuesday that the Threads update will also allow users to sort their “Activity” feed by follows, quotes and reposts, allow people to see their liked posts in their settings and translate certain posts that appear in a different language.
Many users were quick to point out that the “For you” and “Following” tabs look similar to the existing layout on Twitter, which is being rebranded to “X” as part of the latest change to the platform since Elon Musk acquired it late last year.
But the comparisons do not stop there. Threads has a strikingly similar look and feel to Twitter, as many of Twitter’s core icons and features such as character limits have been replicated on the platform. Threads has been touted by Meta executives such as Mosseri as a more positive “public square” for communities “that never really embraced Twitter.”
Threads first launched on July 5 while a series of outages and controversial rate limit policies were affecting Twitter users. The platform quickly climbed to 100 million users, though engagement on the app has since tapered.
Meta said Tuesday that it is working to deliver new features to Threads as quickly as possible.