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How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

engineering.fb.com

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Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#161

Post by brightball »

erulabs wrote: post #105
neon_electro wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share your take on why MySQL and not Postgres?

For me it's mostly about known-knowns. I've been responsible for pretty large/company-critical MySQL clusters and have managed to sleep soundly at night. I tend to be the "database guy" at every startup, and those startups tended to use MySQL. I have to say, I do love PostGIS. But for "this data absolutely cannot be lost or its game-over", I'd go MySQL every time. I can and have debugged MySQL replication on zero hou…

> But for "this data absolutely cannot be lost or its game-over", I'd go MySQL every time.

Man...times have seriously changed if that's the case. Good for MySQL to improve enough to get that recommendation.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#162

Post by sangnoir »

Nextgrid wrote: post #79
roland35 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked at these large companies, I can almost guarantee that what happened was something unintentional or silly versus nefarious. The number of privacy reviews to add a data collection around bans would be astronomical and I would feel bad for that engineer working on that hypothetical feature haha.

> I can almost guarantee that what happened was something unintentional It's unintentional on paper because nobody is stupid enough to put in writing that they intentionally make the ban mechanism very trigger-happy in order to collect more personal information. On the other hand, it works in their favor, so there will not be any attempts at fixing this trigger-happiness either. > The number of privacy reviews to add…

> It's unintentional on paper because nobody is stupid enough to put in writing that they intentionally make the ban mechanism very trigger-happy in order to collect more personal information

How big is this conspiracy? Hundreds to thousands of engineers leave Meta every year, and 0 have blown the whistle on this. The actual FB whistleblower from 2023 didn't allege anything similar to what you're suggesting.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#163

Post by nerdponx »

verdverm wrote: post #14
DeathArrow wrote: post #4

What is Threads?

It's ActivityPub based, Twitter like, social media from Meta It's been pretty chill over there, lacks the crazy that is Twitter For me, it opens the potential for a federated social media protocol. Having a big player like Meta means everyone will likely benefit. Federated means we can move between servers without losing the network, allowing for competition in moderation, algorithms, and monetization

Instagram has been recommending me nothing but controversial political posts from Threads. I've rarely been so repelled from signing up for a service that I might have otherwise tried using.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#164

Post by sangnoir »

fatnoah wrote: post #53
threeseed wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threads reached 100M users well before they turned on Instagram promotions. And now they have reached 100M MAU which shows that people are coming and staying.

The reason threads is considered a success at Meta is because it'd be a marketing failure otherwise. In days past, my team there owned a product that hit over 100M MAU, and it wasn't attention-worthy in any way. It eventually got shutdown and the team disbanded.

> In days past, my team there owned a product that hit over 100M MAU, and it wasn't attention-worthy in any way

This statement is meaningless without knowing what the product, revenue and its Total Addressable Market are. 100M MAU out of 1.5B TAM is not attention-worthy. Twitter at it's peak had 550M MAU, so Threads doing close to 20% of that in less than a year is impressive.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#165

Post by pityJuke »

adonese wrote: post #158
pityJuke wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not wrong. The FYP, at least for my unused account, is garbage tier. Hell, the latest phenomenon it has picked up on is meme pages used to advertise OnlyFans and gambling, and outright pornography and porn ads. Some of the worst human beings are on there spreading ideas about race theory. Responses to anything vaguely popular are filled with blue check marks either trying to make money with engagement bait, or…

I don't what is it with porn on twitter, the blue check was supposed to stop them but they have gotten way worse than before. I was never a good user for twitter, I don't engage that much except for just reading news and just follow some techie people and communities. But even for my light usage I can clearly see the downgrade of the service

> blue check was supposed to stop them

I think this was always an illusion. The blue checkmark certainly hasn't presented a barrier to spammers, and if anything, the reply/promotion boost it gives you has accelerated the rate of spam now that you can more easily get attention.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#166

Post by ranting-moth »

stetrain wrote: post #72
ranting-moth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth mentioning it's also a data harvesting app-only offering.

There's a web version, and if they do follow through on their Activity Pub integration (which they have already demonstrated in a very limited capacity) then you'll be able to use whatever client you want to follow Threads users.

> then you'll be able to use whatever client you want to follow Threads users.

I'm willing to gamble insane amounts on that's never ever going to happen.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#167

Post by hn1986 »

r721 wrote: post #124

Cloudflare Overall Ranking for Threads: https://blog.cloudflare.com/content/images/2023/12/pasted-im... (source: https://blog.cloudflare.com/radar-2023-year-in-review-intern... )

The trajectory shows it is going up. Threads is doing good considering they didn't have a web client until late August and wasn't in the EU until mid-December. Sadly, Cloudflare didn't include this in their notes for additional context - not the best journalism.

It's in the top 5 overall apps across many countries in the EU. The Tech Threads and Photography community are especially good there.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#168

Post by hn1986 »

itslennysfault wrote: post #83

I'm kinda loving the obvious "X" shills in the comments coming just to declare Threads dead. It is literally the 2nd most downloaded app in the AppStore (was #1 for a bit, but Temu is seemingly unstoppable). Personally, it has become my preferred social media platform. It's overflowing with content and I check in on it several times a day, and have been really enjoying the community that is emerging. It DOES however…

Indeed, it's in the top 5 app rankings in many countries. https://www.appbrain.com/app/threads-an-instagram-app/com.in...

I'd encourage people to give Threads and Bluesky a try. Both don't have a CEO that amplifies conspiracy theories and falsehoods.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#169

Post by sureglymop »

anonporridge wrote: post #117
the_gipsy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the same true for twitter nowadays?

It depends entirely on how well you've managed your follows, likes, and comments to train the algorithm. Only NPCs expect good, uplifting content to be handed to them without work. This applies to both X and Threads.

This is not true for Mastodon though because it's not mainstream. Niche servers with people passionate about certain subjects; active niche communities with great content. Kind of like hacker news. This is also why I was scared of Threads using ActivityPub, I don't want my precious small mastodon instances getting flooded with mainstream content.

Re: How meta built the infrastructure for Threads

#170

Post by the_gipsy »

anonporridge wrote: post #117
the_gipsy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the same true for twitter nowadays?

It depends entirely on how well you've managed your follows, likes, and comments to train the algorithm. Only NPCs expect good, uplifting content to be handed to them without work. This applies to both X and Threads.

I mean popular person's tweets getting hijacked with nonsensical but ragebait responses.
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