Meta launches Instagram-linked Twitter replacement “Threads” tomorrow

Rentahamster said:
The majority of people aren't going to make this decision based on ideology. You either like a good/service or you don't. That's capitalism.

No one "wanted" to give Amazon a near monopoly on online sales. They just did first and "better" than anyone else did.

If Threads becomes more popular than Twitter, it's because Threads gave the people what they want. If it doesn't, then it didn't.
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It's already not giving me what I want right now it's basically a mostly text version of my Instagram feed not a source for breaking news like Twitter: if they can solve some of those issues quickly and or there's a mass sustained exodus I might switch but for now Twitter is only as shitty as the content and people you follow whereas threads seems to be trying to get me to like the same vapid Instagram influencers shit.
 
MrMephistoX said:
It's already not giving me what I want right now it's basically a mostly text version of my Instagram feed not a source for breaking news like Twitter: if they can solve some of those issues quickly and or there's a mass sustained exodus I might switch but for now Twitter is only as shitty as the content and people you follow whereas threads seems to be trying to get me to like the same vapid Instagram influencers shit.
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I think it's inevitable that Threads will supplant Twitter once they get to the same basic level of usability that Bluesky and Mastodon already enjoy. It clearly has massive inertia, the common folk just want to be where everyone else is at, and the mob loves this kind of controversy - of flocking to new platforms. It's a big event, it can feel like an internet party, and everyone wants to be a part of it. And with the people go the advertisers.

Besides, Twitter may well reach bankruptcy sooner rather than later unless Musk either opens up his own pocketbook to fund it (in this case, SpaceX and Tesla's pocketbooks) or finds investors foolish enough to give or loan him more money.

I do wonder what Twitter will even look like if it manages to shamble on after Threads replaces it as "the internet public square". How would it manage to persevere once the only advertisers left are stuff like doom's day meal suppliers and pyramid schemes?

Those of us who care about this sort of thing are going to be in for some fun times in the coming months.
 
Maiden Voyage said:
Cucked by Zuck
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He's already making me self censor on the platform. On Twitter or here I have no problem sharing my real opinions which are slightly right of center on some things like taxes and guns and left of center on others like abortion and LGBTQ issues: that tends to piss off both extremes and I'd rather just not have my real name attached to my views and or get into a debate with people I actually know IRL.
 
What's crazy about this is how all the sudden Zuck seems super relatable
 
BadBurger said:
I think it's inevitable that Threads will supplant Twitter once they get to the same basic level of usability that Bluesky and Mastodon already enjoy. It clearly has massive inertia, the common folk just want to be where everyone else is at, and the mob loves this kind of controversy - of flocking to new platforms. It's a big event, it can feel like an internet party, and everyone wants to be a part of it. And with the people go the advertisers.

Besides, Twitter may well reach bankruptcy sooner rather than later unless Musk either opens up his own pocketbook to fund it (in this case, SpaceX and Tesla's pocketbooks) or finds investors foolish enough to give or loan him more money.

I do wonder what Twitter will even look like if it manages to shamble on after Threads replaces it as "the internet public square". How would it manage to persevere once the only advertisers left are stuff like doom's day meal suppliers and pyramid schemes?

Those of us who care about this sort of thing are going to be in for some fun times in the coming months.
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It's true I'm on it and people seem to hate Musk enough to make it a reality.
 
MrMephistoX said:
I'd rather just not have my real name attached to my views
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And that is part of the thing that potentially takes you out of the free speech realm, even besides the whole private company thing.

The law was written into the constitution with the understanding that it would be YOUR speech that was free, but with the added caveat of anonymity that clause becomes muddied because then it's not clear WHOSE speech it is that you want protected.

If you let me borrow your phone and I post a bunch of crazy messed, it becomes your speech, but also not your speech, but also kinda mine and that complicates the issue. Its one of the big reasons why codes of conduct become a necessity.
 
BadBurger said:
I think it's inevitable that Threads will supplant Twitter once they get to the same basic level of usability that Bluesky and Mastodon already enjoy. It clearly has massive inertia, the common folk just want to be where everyone else is at, and the mob loves this kind of controversy - of flocking to new platforms. It's a big event, it can feel like an internet party, and everyone wants to be a part of it. And with the people go the advertisers.

Besides, Twitter may well reach bankruptcy sooner rather than later unless Musk either opens up his own pocketbook to fund it (in this case, SpaceX and Tesla's pocketbooks) or finds investors foolish enough to give or loan him more money.

I do wonder what Twitter will even look like if it manages to shamble on after Threads replaces it as "the internet public square". How would it manage to persevere once the only advertisers left are stuff like doom's day meal suppliers and pyramid schemes?

Those of us who care about this sort of thing are going to be in for some fun times in the coming months.
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Show me on the doll where Elon touched you
 
LegendOfKage said:
That's not true. What opinion, belief, or statement am I currently not allowed to post on twitter, in the US, that isn't a violation of law?
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It's not about you, it's not about the US. Those are caveats that ruin your argument. But even still what you're not allowed to do is use public info to track his jet, or post pictures of a flag that supposedly represented paedophilia.
 
LegendOfKage said:
You didn't answer my question, you just wrote a bunch of things that ignore it. If not twitter, then where?
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Build a physical public Forum, for example. Every city can lend its city hall for public debate where anyone can go and stand at the pulpit. It's still public but not effortlessly public. It would be at least somewhat controlled by the people and not by a company and people who really care have to be bothered to go there (so there's less kneejerk, drive-by shitposting) and having to discuss it not behind some computer display maybe forces you to not be a complete shithead and actually put some thought behind what you say.

You can post the proceedings for the world to read afterwards.
 
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I love how the rather foolish hero worship of company CEOs in the video games industry has now moved over to the same bullshit with social media platforms.

Elon Musk isn't your friend any more than Phil Spencer.
 
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Rentahamster said:
I think I understand what you're trying to say, and as a fellow advocate for freedom of speech, I am sympathetic to that cause. However, I think you are granting Twitter and Elon more credit than they are due in their role of "the preservation of free speech in modern society".

Free speech existed before Twitter, and even without Twitter can still exist. Elon the self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" also compromises free speech when it suits his needs, usually financial. Elevating what Twitter was, what Twitter is, and what Twitter could be, beyond what it deserves, isn't very compelling to me. As long as The Constitution exists and our institutions still take it seriously, I really can't feel that much of a desire for Twitter needing to be the shield bearer for free speech.
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Not on the big corporate social medias (facebook, youtube, instagram) and certainly not on Pre-Musk Twitter.
 
LegendOfKage said:
That's not true. What opinion, belief, or statement am I currently not allowed to post on twitter, in the US, that isn't a violation of law?
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funkygunther said:
It's not about you, it's not about the US. Those are caveats that ruin your argument. But even still what you're not allowed to do is use public info to track his jet, or post pictures of a flag that supposedly represented paedophilia.
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Supposedly? What's the other argument for what it represented? I'm not about to derail the conversation, I'm just not aware that there was an alternative being argued.

But neither of your examples are opinions, beliefs, or statements. I'm not talking about the subjectivity of what constitutes doxing or prohibited images, both of which are banned on ALL social media platforms and have been for decades, and not many people had a problem with that. I don't need to use a picture or post someone's personal information to express a thought, opinion, belief, etc.

And I mention the US, because it's the only nation in the world with legally protected free speech protected by the highest law of the land. Anyone else can do as they please to disallow their citizen's speech, and have been doing so more and more lately.

Toons said:
The law was written into the constitution with the understanding that it would be YOUR speech that was free, but with the added caveat of anonymity that clause becomes muddied because then it's not clear WHOSE speech it is that you want protected.
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Do you have a legal precedent for that assertion? It's an interesting argument, and one I've not heard before. It still doesn't quite hold up to the fact that the US government told twitter to censor verified accounts, but it's still an interesting aspect to consider.

Rentahamster said:
I also don't live in fear of the government exerting influence to silence me on any of my private platforms either. This doesn't mean it doesn't or couldn't happen to anyone else, of course. I am aware of the particular examples that trouble you in regards to this issue. However, it is my personal view that although we're never going to get a perfect system, it works well enough and while these examples are troubling, I don't see us running into a constitutional crisis anytime soon because of them. Is this a classic frog boiling in the pot scenario? Maybe. But probably not.
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I'm reminded of the MLK quote: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Even if you're fine with the actions the government has taken to influence the censorship of speech beyond what the law allows, because for now you happen to agree with what and who is being censored, I'd encourage you to remember that no group holds power forever. What people accept now always creates a precedent that will continue to be used in the future. It's why the ACLU used to fight for the rights of some of the worst people around to hatefully protest in the streets.

Rentahamster said:
In practical terms, the only real form of censorship that the government has ever really imposed on me within the context of telecommunications is when I couldn't say "fuck my cunt" on TV. But that's a minor issue.
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Did you know there are two knobs on social media? Always one of my favorite Carlin clips:

 
LegendOfKage said:
Supposedly? What's the other argument for what it represented? I'm not about to derail the conversation, I'm just not aware that there was an alternative being argued.

But neither of your examples are opinions, beliefs, or statements. I'm not talking about the subjectivity of what constitutes doxing or prohibited images, both of which are banned on ALL social media platforms and have been for decades, and not many people had a problem with that. I don't need to use a picture or post someone's personal information to express a thought, opinion, belief, etc.
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I used supposedly because I know so little of the flag but you can remove that word and it doesn't change my post.

So far to get to your point you've had to agree with the censorship of or ignore: other countries, freedom of speech you don't think counts and censoring of individuals that aren't you. List is getting small for you. Probably best to admit free speech is subjective and so is what Twitter censors.

Shall we continue? You can't deny the holocaust or school shootings on Twitter. Does this meet your ever decreasing definition of free speech?
 
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From a commercial perspective, having a Threads account makes sense, as it's part of the Meta eco-system, and if you're selling on FBV and Insta, you might as well sell on Threads too. That's why the uptake from companies has been so fast on Threads. Whether there will be enough actual customers to sustain it is another thing. Although they seem to be making it easy to transfer over from Insta, so it has a very good foundation. No wonder Elon's scared.
 
FunkMiller said:
From a commercial perspective, having a Threads account makes sense, as it's part of the Meta eco-system, and if you're selling on FBV and Insta, you might as well sell on Threads too. That's why the uptake from companies has been so fast on Threads. Whether there will be enough actual customers to sustain it is another thing. Although they seem to be making it easy to transfer over from Insta, so it has a very good foundation. No wonder Elon's scared.
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It's also fun seeing his post about how none of the engineers he fired did anything juxtaposed against the lawsuit of "you hired all my talent that knows how to do everything, no fair!!"
 
Thaedolus said:
It's also fun seeing his post about how none of the engineers he fired did anything juxtaposed against the lawsuit of "you hired all my talent that knows how to do everything, no fair!!"
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It's funny how un-Business savvy he appears to be. What did he expect was going to happen? There will always be someone ready to challenge your position in the market if they are given half an opening. And he opened Twitter up wide to this kind of exploitation from another provider. It only needs someone to offer a similar service to disgruntled customers, and you're fucked.
 
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It's cool that Twitter is being curbstomped, but really it's just another reminder about how much I wish I could delete what Meta already has on my phone, but can't because my friends and family use Facebook too much to communicate and plan everything. I'm trapped and I hate it.

"Hand over every piece of information about you or be cut off"
 
BlackTron said:
It's cool that Twitter is being curbstomped, but really it's just another reminder about how much I wish I could delete what Meta already has on my phone, but can't because my friends and family use Facebook too much to communicate and plan everything. I'm trapped and I hate it.

"Hand over every piece of information about you or be cut off"
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I deleted my Facebook years ago. The people that matter to me I can still get in touch with. But yeah I get it.... my so called "best friend" gave the excuse that I had no Facebook as the reason he didn't talk to me anymore.

I say go for it and delete your account. If people care enough about you then they will stay in touch. People still ask me if I have a Facebook/WhatsApp and I say nah if you need me you can call/text me. If you have an iPhone (which most people here do) then you can FaceTime or iMessage me.

The grip that META has on communication is so bad and something needs to be done about it. If Threads takes off then META pretty much has a monopoly on social media. Twitter is the last big social media to stand against them. There is TikTok but I don't think you can use that for communicating? I know about the fediverse stuff but sites like Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, etc aren't mainstream friendly. Reddit also doesn't stand a chance and that seems to be going down the shitter same as Twitter.
 
FunkMiller said:
It's funny how un-Business savvy he appears to be. What did he expect was going to happen? There will always be someone ready to challenge your position in the market if they are given half an opening. And he opened Twitter up wide to this kind of exploitation from another provider. It only needs someone to offer a similar service to disgruntled customers, and you're fucked.
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They're already at 50 million on Threads.
 
FunkMiller said:
It's funny how un-Business savvy he appears to be. What did he expect was going to happen? There will always be someone ready to challenge your position in the market if they are given half an opening. And he opened Twitter up wide to this kind of exploitation from another provider. It only needs someone to offer a similar service to disgruntled customers, and you're fucked.
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I was put in a position like this myself. When they realized they screwed up, I got the same kind of hollow legal threats Musk is posturing just in case I get the idea to open my own business. When I hand-waved it away, I got a death threat. Of course, like Musk, they had no chance to succeed anyway with the way they are running the place. Better to let them run it into the ground on their own time and get as far away from the toxicity as possible. They actually tried to make me feel pressured with some contrived BS to come back and save them later....LOL I wonder if Musk misses his employees now
 
nightmare-slain said:
I deleted my Facebook years ago. The people that matter to me I can still get in touch with. But yeah I get it.... my so called "best friend" gave the excuse that I had no Facebook as the reason he didn't talk to me anymore.

I say go for it and delete your account. If people care enough about you then they will stay in touch. People still ask me if I have a Facebook/WhatsApp and I say nah if you need me you can call/text me. If you have an iPhone (which most people here do) then you can FaceTime or iMessage me.

The grip that META has on communication is so bad and something needs to be done about it. If Threads takes off then META pretty much has a monopoly on social media. Twitter is the last big social media to stand against them. There is TikTok but I don't think you can use that for communicating? I know about the fediverse stuff but sites like Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, etc aren't mainstream friendly. Reddit also doesn't stand a chance and that seems to be going down the shitter same as Twitter.
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Thanks for trying, but there's no way I'll EVER buy an iphone lol. Most people here have one? Guess I read the temperature completely wrong.

This morning my ten year old niece used Facebook to video chat me. She can't see her mom, who is in the hospital right now (for the 4th time in a year) for being a complete mental basket case. Without writing a paragraph, it's chaos and all parties have/use Facebook. Even her stepmom who used it to find me in a pinch to discuss changing logistics during the craziness last week. If it was just checking scheduled events that friends set up I would use desktop browser and a piece of paper. I've switched girls/friends to text messaging. In the end, in a complex real world with many problems, it doesn't matter and introduces an extra barrier. I wish I could "set up" my own little personal world where FB does not matter, but it doesn't work that way.
 
BlackTron said:
Thanks for trying, but there's no way I'll EVER buy an iphone lol. Most people here have one? Guess I read the temperature completely wrong.

This morning my ten year old niece used Facebook to video chat me. She can't see her mom, who is in the hospital right now (for the 4th time in a year) for being a complete mental basket case. Without writing a paragraph, it's chaos and all parties have/use Facebook. Even her stepmom who used it to find me in a pinch to discuss changing logistics during the craziness last week. If it was just checking scheduled events that friends set up I would use desktop browser and a piece of paper. I've switched girls/friends to text messaging. In the end, in a complex real world with many problems, it doesn't matter and introduces an extra barrier. I wish I could "set up" my own little personal world where FB does not matter, but it doesn't work that way.
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I wasn't trying to sell you on iPhone lol but ok. And I don't even know where you live. I was talking about my experience.... most of my friends, coworkers, family have an iPhone.

Keep giving your data over to META then if it's easier for you 🤷‍♂️ Not my problem was just trying to give you some advice lol.
 
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nightmare-slain said:
I wasn't trying to sell you on iPhone lol but ok. And I don't even know where you live. I was talking about my experience.... most of my friends, coworkers, family have an iPhone.

Keep giving your data over to META then if it's easier for you 🤷‍♂️ Not my problem was just trying to give you some advice lol.
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Ok sorry, by "most people here" I thought you meant GAF.
 
k_trout said:
you need to download an app? cant just log in to website?
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no you need to have an instagram account and download the threads app. if you want to delete your account you need to delete instagram too. if you're in the EU you won't get it (which i suppose is a good thing) because it breaks so many privacy laws.

it's basically just a Twitter skin slapped on Instagram so there is more of a focus on text posts and comments.

maybe in the future they will make the accounts separate from Instagram and let you access it on the website. They rushed it out due to the shitfest Twitter is having.
 
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gORHGdA.jpg
 
Honestly, I actually like it. Followed pretty much the same people and my timeline pretty much fixed itself. Still needs the main features like hashtags/search/following page, but it's actually pretty damn good for what it is.

I definitely like how it shows pictures more on Threads than Twitter. Never liked how twitter has the images zoomed/cropped in and you have to click them to view the full image.

It feels MUCH snappier than twitter.

I never used Lists much on twitter but I wouldn't mind that feature.

Wish it was separate from IG so you just make a new account and you're in rather than logging in with an IG account. I do think EU might tell them to make that optional rather than a requirement and then allow linking IG through options or something.
 
LegendOfKage said:
Do you have a legal precedent for that assertion? It's an interesting argument, and one I've not heard before. It still doesn't quite hold up to the fact that the US government told twitter to censor verified accounts, but it's still an interesting aspect to consider.
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There is legal precedent, but frankly rhe topic is very new and the Court system and most of its members are old and out of depth with something like this so it hasn't been addressed fully. Basically things are looked at on a case by case basis, and its determined via analysis of context whether or not ones anonymity is protected per case when the internet is involved.

Bur even outside of that, it's well understood that Twitter is not a public sector nor a function of government and is a business, so naturally it is able to make and uphold codes of conduct and choose to restrict people from usage of it as it sees fit.
 
nightmare-slain said:
no you need to have an instagram account and download the threads app.
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By the balls.
nightmare-slain said:
maybe in the future they will make the accounts separate from Instagram and let you access it on the website. They rushed it out due to the shitfest Twitter is having.
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Yeah after talk of insider trading giving the timing, I wasn't so convinced, exactly for this reason. Seems more like they slapped it together ASAP to capitalize on the situation.
 
So, Threads will be a moderately successful woke hellhole with 4x the active users of Twitter, which will remain based after all the screetchers have left? Sounds good to me.
 
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