How to cleanse your Threads

After Elon turned Twitter into X, more evenly keeled people turned to Threads for their textual social experiences. It’s certainly has felt like a more sane place, more balanced, more valuable.

But in recent weeks and months, Threads have developed what can only be described as an “engagement bait” problem. These are posts that are crafted by content farms, designed to attract maximum engagement. This is the definition, as per Meta’s Transparency Centre:

Posts that explicitly request engagement (such as votes, shares, comments, tags, likes or other reactions) for purposes other than a specific call to action (such as seeking help to find missing people or property, raising money or sharing a petition) on Facebook. For example, this doesn't include posts that ask people to engage in order to show that they do or do not support an issue, or to share time-sensitive information regarding natural disasters and life-threatening events.

Meta knows the problem is getting worse, as per Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram.

So while they fix it, I’ve come up with a small solution.

How to cleanse your Threads

I’ve used my good friend ChatGPT to come up with all the typical engagement bait phrases it’s tiny little mind could think of. I also asked her to separate them by comma, as per the format required by Threads. This just makes for easier copying and pasting.

“Comment ‘Yes’ if you agree!”, “What are your thoughts on this?”, “Drop an emoji that describes your mood!”, “Tag a friend who needs to see this!”, “Share this with someone who needs to hear it!”, “Pass this along to spread the word.”, “If you agree, hit that share button!”, “Share if you love [topic/person]!”, “Hit like if you love this!”, “Give us a thumbs up if you agree!”, “React with a heart if you’ve experienced this!”, “Double-tap if you think this is true!”, “Which do you prefer, A or B? Let us know in the comments!”, “Like for Option A, Love for Option B!”, “Would you rather: [Option 1] or [Option 2]? Drop your answer below!”, “Vote using the reaction buttons!”, “Tag someone who needs to see this.”, “Who would you do this with? Tag them!”, “Tag your best friend in the comments!”, “Know someone who would love this? Mention them below!”, “I bet you can’t name a single person who wouldn’t do this!”, “Only 1% of people will get this right. Are you one of them?”, “Prove you’re a true fan by completing this challenge!”, “Take this quiz and post your results in the comments!”, “Tell us your story in the comments!”, “When was the last time you did this? Share below!”, “What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you involving this?”, “Share your experience with this—let’s chat!”

Then, I copied and pasted these into a “hidden words” field inside Threads profile settings, where you can mute phrases and words.

Note: This setting is available on mobile and desktop, but only the desktop version allows copying and pasting en masse.

So,

1. Go to your Threads profile on desktop and open settings. It’s in the tiny little two line menu option on the left.

2. Go to Settings > Hidden Words > Manage custom words and phrases.

3. Then copy and paste the list above. Of course, add and delete as you wish to fine tune your experience.

And, et voila.

Happy threading.