Meta threads are Twitter’s second biggest challenge
Meta’s new Threads service is Twitter’s second biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is the antics of its owner, Elon Musk.
Mr. Musk, who took over the company last year, laid off thousands of employees, including many of the moderators, dissolved the Safety Advisory Board (on which I was a member), and made the lives of scammers and bigots all the way through. It made life easier and made life less comfortable for unscrupulous traders. I would like to use it for private online conversations.
As a result, thousands of people have left Twitter or significantly reduced their use of it, with a few people filling the void. Twitter alternative Bluesky, Mastodon, Post, Spill, T2, Donald Trump’s Truth Social and more. Each of these has its fans, but none have gained critical mass.
network effect
Starting a new social media service is difficult due to network effects. No matter how good it is, most people don’t want to use the service unless their friends are there, and the person you want to interact with may not be there with you.
But with Threads, an Instagram extension, you can get around this problem by allowing you to follow your Instagram friends. By July 10th, just five days after its release, Threads reached his 100 million user base. Twitter has been in service since 2006, and as of July last year, it had about 240 million daily active users that could be monetized. Reuters. As of October 2022, he has over 2 billion Instagram users. tweeted “Traffic to the Twitter website was down 5% compared to the same day last week and 11% lower than the same day last year.” Analytics firms call this the “thread effect.”
I joined Threads (you can follow me on LarryMagid) on day one. In my experience, it’s a lot like Twitter, but still lacks some of Twitter’s features like direct messaging and hashtags. The biggest drawback for me is that it only works on mobile. No web version. But this is only the first week of Threads. Meta will continue to work on developing this service and will very likely introduce all these features and more in the near future. Also, Threads does not have the ability to edit posts. This feature has been available on Facebook and Instagram for some time, and was only recently introduced for Twitter users who pay $8/month for verified accounts.
a gentler and gentler place
Several of my thread users have commented that it’s a kinder, gentler place, without the hate speech, threats, and harshness that plague Twitter. My experience with Threads has been very positive as well, but because of the people I follow, I personally find myself not so acrimonious on Twitter unless I go out of my way to see the tweets of controversial figures. You don’t see the words.
One of the reasons why threads have so few offensive posts is because: Instagram community guidelines It includes a section titled “Respect other members of the Instagram community,” which states that it “contains credible threats, hate speech, content that targets individuals and defames or humiliates, or threatens anyone. Personal information for the purpose of harassing or harassing, repeating unwanted messages, etc. It also prohibits any threats or attacks based on “race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, disability or disease.”
Meta isn’t perfect when it comes to enforcing rules. At my non-profit ConnectSafely, we occasionally hear from people who have been unable to get Meta to remove offensive content they believe violates our community guidelines. But the company employs thousands of moderators around the world, working with technology to respond to reports from billions of users.
Competition, childish behavior, fights in cages
Twitter’s response to Threads stated that Meta intentionally hired a former Twitter employee “within the coming months to Meta with the specific intent to use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.” For developing a counterfeit Threads app,” and threatened to sue. Accelerate the development of Meta’s competitive apps. In response, Meta spokesman Andy Stone posted to Threads, “There is no ex-Twitter employee on the Threads engineering team. No way.”
But Musk also responded with childish tweets such as “Zack is shit” and a proposal to enter a competition over genital size. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk previously agreed to a “cage fight,” with Zuckerberg reportedly spotted training with two Ultimate Fighting Champions.
For the most part, my online friends don’t fight or cuss in cages, but many have moved to threads, and looking at what they post, most are happy with it at first. For those worried about Meta’s privacy history, or skeptical of services run by billionaire-controlled social media giants like Twitter, this is yet another Meta product. I have seen some negative comments.
But perhaps to challenge Elon Musk’s notion of a social media platform that supports “free speech” while at least temporarily banishing journalists and others who criticized him, the billionaire You probably want a company owned by a fellow.
I’m not a fan of cage fights, but I do like competition. Threads and Twitter battles instill kindness and respect alongside heated debates.
Disclosure: Larry Majid is CEO of ConnectSafely, which is funded by Meta. He served on Meta’s safety advisory council and served on Twitter’s safety council until it dissolved after Musk bought the company.
https://www.siliconvalley.com/2023/07/13/larry-magid-metas-threads-is-twitters-second-biggest-challenge/ Meta threads are Twitter’s second biggest challenge