I think there is a larger question about the role that celebrities, influencers, meme accounts, thirst trap accounts, or any other account that is incentivized to post play on social media.

You immediately saw the energy and positivity drop as these groups arrived to threads. Perhaps it was a mix of egotism, phoniness, and shallow attempts at engagement, but you also saw engagement and follows rise with that group.

The head of Instagram has said that news is going to be less of a priority for them, which coincides with Canadian legislation demanding pay for links and upcoming US legislation that is expected to be similar.

I would love to see them deprioritize these financially motivated accounts and try to focus more on local and more genuine interactions, otherwise they will just fall into the same trap Twitter has been stuck in for years.

Ultimately, these accounts drive engagement but perhaps there is a cost to the long-term health or viability of the platform when taking this approach. Given Meta has seemingly no need to monetize Threads, I hope they try new approaches that are healthier for the platform and better for their users rather than cheap engagement.