Threads, Meta’s microblogging platform, has gained a lot of new features since its launch last year. However, the company has just announced another new feature that users don’t seem to be happy about. Soon, other Threads users will be able to see when you’re online on the platform.
Threads to show online status to other users
The news was confirmed on Tuesday by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, who’s also the head of Threads. In a post on the platform, Mosseri shared a screenshot of how the new activity status feature will work. Essentially, the app will show a green dot to indicate that a user is currently online on Threads.
According to Mosseri, the idea is to help users find other people online to motivate real-time engagement. The executive hopes that this will make it “easier to have conversations” on Threads.
“We’re rolling out activity status as a way to help you find others to engage with in real-time. Only people who have activity status turned on will be able to see when you’re online, and you can turn this off within your settings at any time. We hope that knowing when your people are online makes it easier to have conversations,” Mosseri said.
Luckily, the activity status to show when you’re online will be optional – at least for now. Similar to Instagram, Threads will let users switch off their activity status in the settings. However, turning off your status will also prevent you from seeing if other people are online.
A few years ago, Twitter also explored the idea of an indicator to show people online, but the company eventually scrapped the idea. Based on the replies to Mosseri’s post, there are a significant number of Threads users who don’t think the activity status is necessary.
What about you? Do you like the idea of seeing who’s online in Threads? Let us know in the comments section below.
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