Aggregator

Threads now has more than 400 million monthly active users. But who are these people who are actually using Threads, asks Mashable? And what is their cultural footprint? Threads is the Big Bang Theory of social media. Bland, boring, largely unoffensive, and somehow, it was the most popular show on television for years... At any given time, "Twitter" and "X" are searched somewhere between 12 and 30 times more than "Threads" on Google, according to the search engine's Trends data. Threads is a popular platform without much of an identity... [Threads] is consistently good at one thing users really want from a social media platform: for their posts to be seen and engaged with. Threads might be boring in comparison to its competitors, but its users say it might be the only place on the internet right now where they don't feel they are screaming into the void.... Much like TikTok, you don't actually have to have thousands of followers to find decent engagement on the app. One user, commenting in a Reddit forum questioning who actually uses the app, said they "find it worthwhile" because "you can just say stuff on there under a tag and people will find it and respond...." According to consumer research company GWI, while users signed up for Threads because of its integration with Instagram, they're staying because Threads users are "community-focused," noting there's a strong overlap between Discord users and Threads users.... It just doesn't have the same flair as X or Twitter, which could be because Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, went out of his way to ensure politics was downplayed when Threads first launched. (Meta has since backtracked slightly by phasing "civic content" back into Threads "with a more personalized approach....") Threads is still in its adolescence. It lacks the media ecosystem that made Twitter indispensable for journalists, politicians, and celebrities. But it has something else: sheer scale and Meta's backing. With Instagram's 2 billion users as a feeder system, Meta can keep funneling people toward Threads whether they like it or not. The article also points out Threads is integrated with the fediverse, supporting ActivityPub's decentralized protocol...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The broadcaster, 65, kicked back in the Cheese Hub and sipped on a pint at the event which takes place in Kingham, Oxfordshire.

An Irish folk music band were pulled off stage at a UK festival after starting a pro-Palestine chant.

The Free Software Foundation announced a special photography contest honoring its 40th anniversary: The technology we use every day has changed dramatically since our founding nearly forty years ago, including the way we interact with it... We're incredibly grateful for the countless hours that developers and users have put into the free software programs that exist today. Without all the people who cared enough to make and use software that respects the four freedoms four decades or even a year ago, we wouldn't have much to celebrate. We want to honor the hard work that has gone into free software and its development with the FSF40 Photo Contest. Starting on August 14, 2025, we're inviting free software supporters worldwide to share how they use free software on a daily basis. While we can think of hundreds of ways that free software can be used, there's almost certainly many of you who have thought of much more creative ways to involve libre software every day! Shortly after the photo contest closes on August 31, 2025, we will invite you and other free software supporters to vote for your favorite of the #FSF40Photos... We will be displaying the winning photos at our fortieth [anniversary] celebration in Boston, MA on October 4, 2025 — we hope you get to see them on a big screen with us! Earlier this month the FSF also shared 40 links from around the FSF and GNU sites "that give a sense of what we've been doing all this time as we work for your freedom." (For example, 2007's announcement of the GNU General Public License, version 3.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The SNP 's nationalised rail service is scrapping the use of its AI station 'announcer' following a row with a renowned Scots voiceover artist.

MATTHEW LAMBWELL IN NEW YORK: In 2022, defending her title, she was wracked by nerves. In 2023 she missed the tournament altogether with injuries. Last year she came in ice cold.

'We won’t give up until our town is peaceful again'

Police were called to Fishponds Park in Surbiton, south-west London , just before 7.15am on Thursday morning.

An episode of Impossible which aired a number of years ago has resurfaced thanks to one participant's attempts at bagging the jackpot prize.

Cheshire-based Gareth Jones, 41, has spoken out to help other victims of domestic abuse, particularly men who feel they will be shamed if they come forward.

Khloé Kardashian threatened to steal the spotlight from her close friend Olivia Pierson on Friday as she shared outtakes from the influencer's birthday celebration.

"Some joyless ne'er-do-well has loosed a botnet on the community-driven Arch Linux distro," reports the Register, with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that apparently started a week ago. Arch maintainer Cristian Heusel announced Thursday on the project's web site that the attack "primarily impacts our main webpage, the Arch User Repository (AUR), and the Forums." We are aware of the problems that this creates for our end users and will continue to actively work with our hosting provider to mitigate the attack. We are also evaluating DDoS protection providers while carefully considering factors including cost, security, and ethical standards... As a volunteer-driven project, we appreciate the community's patience as our DevOps team works to resolve these issues. A status update Friday acknowledged "we are suffering from partial outages." The Register reports: The attack comes as the project has been enjoying a boost in mainstream success. The distro was picked by Valve to underpin the SteamOS software running on its Steam Deck handheld gaming gadget, with the company providing the project with funding for further development. Late last year, a new version of the archinstall tool was released, with a view to making the system more friendly to newcomers... For now, the Arch team is working to mitigate the attack's impact, which highlights a bootstrapping issue. Tools designed to shift traffic to mirrors in the event the main infrastructure is unavailable rely on a mirror list obtained from that same main infrastructure, with Heusel advising that users should "default to the mirrors listed in the pacman-mirrorlist package" if tools like reflector fail. Installation media can be downloaded from a range of mirrors, too, but should be checked against the project's official signing key before being trusted.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Police were called just before 7.15am on Thursday morning to Fishponds Park in Surbiton, south-west London .

The numbers don't lie. Keir Starmer's political fate is now sealed. On Tuesday, pollster YouGov published its latest government approval figures

Approximately 10,000 tonnes of rock peeled off the 600 foot tall cliff at Golden Cap, near Seaton, Dorset, and slumped onto the beach at about 12.50pm yesterday.

Dua sizzled in a burgundy sheer-style halter maxi dress that featured a plunging neckline for her intimate birthday dinner.

Fans of iconic '80s sitcoms and beloved animated series were in for a treat on Wednesday when one of its biggest stars stepped out for a rare appearance in Los Angeles.

Two years ago Oliver Alvis was the sort of young man every parent hopes their son will be. Diligent, clean-living, responsible, he worked long hours as a train driver and had paid off the mortgage.

CCTV footage shows Kieran Shepherd, 30, with his dog before being ambushed by Joseph Dawe, Zack O'Keeffe and Harrison Carpenter in Great Baddow, Essex.

Inside the welfare tent at Wilderness Festival, volunteers from Open Road – Essex-based charity specialising in drug and alcohol recovery support.