Meta’s Social Media Platform Threads Reaches 275 Million Users - 1

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Meta’s Social Media Platform Threads Reaches 275 Million Users

  • Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • Threads reached 275 million active users a month
  • Zuckerberg said it has been gaining 1 million users per day and expects it to keep growing
  • Compared to October 2023, the platform has grown by 175%

Meta’s latest social media platform Threads—launched in July 2023— reached 275 million monthly active users according to a new announcement.

“Yesterday we crossed 275M monthly active users on Threads. A big thank you to everyone who’s helped us get this far,” wrote Adam Mosseri , head of Threads and Instagram at Meta, on the platform yesterday.

Mosseri also acknowledged improvement opportunities and promised users that they would work on making the platform better for everyone. “There’s a lot more to do and plenty of things to fix, but there’s something exciting about this place,” added Mosseri.

According to TechCrunch , Threads has taken advantage of a wave of users leaving X—formerly Twitter—due to changes and updates after Elon Musk acquired the platform. Meta’s text-based social media network is very similar to X and quickly became “one of the biggest text-first social networks.”

During the past three months the micro-blogging app has gained 75 million users, and, according to Mark Zuckerberg’s—Meta’s CEO—declarations for the results of the third quarter of the year, the social media network has been reaching 1 million new users per day in the past few days.

“We continue to be on track towards this becoming our next major social app,” said Zuckerberg on a Q3 2024 call with analysts last Wednesday.

According to CNBC , the last reports show that compared to last year, Threads has grown 175% in users as it had 100 million by this time in 2023. However, X remains ahead with 318 million—as estimated by Sensor Tower—even after losing almost 24% of its users since October 2022.

Bluesky, another platform competing against X and Threads, reached 10 million users a few weeks ago.

AI-Generated Presenter Interviews Dead Poet On Radio - 2

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AI-Generated Presenter Interviews Dead Poet On Radio

  • Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
  • Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • Off Radio Krakow aired an AI-generated interview with deceased poet Wislawa Szymborska.
  • The AI experiment increased the station’s audience from near-zero to 8,000 listeners.
  • Radio Krakow terminated the AI presenters after strong public criticism.

A Polish radio station’s controversial experiment with AI-generated presenters has stirred a national debate over ethics and job security in broadcasting, as reported today by The New York Times .

Off Radio Krakow, part of Poland’s state-funded Radio Krakow, tried to boost its shrinking audience by replacing hosts with AI avatars, including an “interview” with deceased Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska. The AI-generated conversation sparked immediate backlash, prompting the station to end the project, as noted by The Times.

The backlash began when former Off Radio Krakow host Lukasz Zaleski, whose cultural talk show was canceled earlier in the year, criticized the use of an AI simulation of Szymborska. Zaleski noted that while the digital recreation of Szymborska’s voice was “convincing,” the ethical implications were deeply troubling, reported The Times.

Off Radio Krakow’s AI experiment was part of a broader strategy by Mariusz Marcin Pulit, the head of Radio Krakow, to boost audience numbers for its niche youth-oriented channels. Pulit’s goal was to attract a younger audience to Off Radio Krakow by introducing AI presenters with Gen Z biographies , said The Times.

The station’s viewership did spike temporarily, increasing from nearly zero to around 8,000 after the AI hosts’ debut. However, public outrage soon overshadowed this achievement, as noted by The Times.

For example, one of the AI presenters removed from Off Radio Krakow was Alex Szulc, a fictional non-binary character portrayed as a progressive with “social commitment.” Following criticism from LGBTQ activists who argued that representation requires real voices, as reported by The Times.

An online petition by Zaleski argued that the introduction of AI presenters represents a broader threat to the livelihoods of seasoned journalists and media professionals, opening the door to a world where machines replace experienced humans in creative roles, as reported by The Times.

Pulit defended the project, stating that his aim was not to replace people but to create a conversation about AI’s role in media. He insisted that AI would merely “enhance” content and engage younger listeners, as noted by The Times.

The experiment has also drawn scrutiny from the National Radio and Television Council of Poland. Marzena Paczuska, a council member, criticized Pulit, accusing him of compromising journalistic integrity.

Marzena claimed that this experiment “eliminating the human factor” and forcing media to obey “unethical commands and ideas serving, for example, strictly political interests,” as reported by The Times.