So far, I’m not liking how Threads posts render on my Akkoma server.
Too much of it is no text – just a big ginormous paperclip.
And what is that paperclip? Well, when I click on it, it opens up a new tab to reveal… a screenshot of a Tweet.
All of this could be bloody avoided if Threads people put the contents of the tweet in their posts. Or even better, if Threads actually rendered these pictures in the post and put in alt-text as well.
I’d tell these Threads people how bad these posts look on the Fediverse, but none of them can see my replies. Thanks, @zuck!
(Also, if the link to the post doesn’t show up, don’t blame me. Blame Threads. You don’t need to click it anyway since I’m providing a screenshot of what I’m seeing.)
@fediversenews
RE: https://threads.net/ap/users/17841445114285241/post/18424180516023009/
@atomicpoet @zuck @fediversenews replies are coming, but this image thing looks totally broken, will forward this onto the team
@mosseri @atomicpoet @zuck@threads.net @fediversenews
This might be a problem with the local client? We're certainly sending down a valid CDN url as the attachment, and it renders just fine in other Mastodon clients (screenshot here is from my local server).
The CDN url is hosted on cdninstagram.com so I would check if you have any local blocklists in your browser that might affect that.
Alt-text is coming :)
@mosseri @atomicpoet @zuck@threads.net @fediversenews
the alt-text in this case is:
"Photo by Jo on April 05, 2024. May be a Twitter screenshot of 2 people and text that says 'Jo @JoJoFromJerz … Donald Trump was the president when the entire planet was hit with a once in a lifetime historic pandemic. But, ok. Marjorie Taylor Greene... @mtgreenee Follow God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. pray that our country listens.'."
@pcottle @mosseri This is not a Mastodon client. It’s how Pleroma, Akkoma, and other forks display images from Threads.
And yes, I’ve tested this on multiple front-ends and clients—same result. Other people running Akkoma and Pleroma report the same thing.
Both Akkoma and Pleroma, by the way, utilize Mastodon’s API.
One further thing: behind Mastodon and Misskey, Pleroma/Akkoma is the third most used microblogging server software on the Fediverse, particularly popular with people who run small servers and care about resource efficiency. It’s used by around 200,000 people. As more people run their own servers, it will likely be even more popular in the future.
@atomicpoet See my post here for clarification on the clients bit:
https://cyberplace.social/@pcottle/112231536503756161
That being said, ML-generated alt text should be available in the API now! Just verified on my end. Your feedback is heard :) We've always exposed user-provided alt text but that's not always provided.
Let me know if you have any theories on why this URL can't be rendered.
@pcottle I appreciate it!