Threads, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp: How a Meta-owned Microblogging Site Has Come into a Flaring Crisis
The latest innovation of Meta, Threads, faces a long struggle to take down one of the oldest and most popular microblogging sites in the world. Since Mr. Musk bought the platform, it has become a feeding frenzy for users that has become more heated. It comes with large potential, thanks to its built-in user base, polished tech, and reputation for better moderation that are likely to please advertisers.
The platform arrives at a bad time for the micro-blogging site. Musk made an announcement that free account would only be able to view 600 tweets a day. Such moves will likely further hurt advertising on the platform—worsening a crisis that’s been ongoing throughout Musk’s tenure.
It might be a jarring reminder, but this is par for the course with Meta-owned apps, which the company monetizes by selling targeted ads and personalized marketing. Facebook and Instagram’s iOS apps list even more categories than Threads, the Messenger app lists about as many, and even the secure messaging app WhatsApp discloses nine categories of “Data Linked to You.” So for people fed up with Twitter’s rapidly deteriorating platform (and vibes), a Meta-owned alternative—with its predictability and relative stability—could even potentially appeal to those who are generally concerned about data privacy.
ActivityPub will be supported soon, according to Meta, though it doesn’t inspire confidence. The company has already spent years, for example, working on its longtime promise of default end-to-end encryption on Messenger. Meta reportedly had a vision for the app from the beginning that included incorporating decentralization into Threads and supporting ActivityPub. The details of the plan in Meta’s supplemental privacy policy for Threads were already sketched out.
“The fact that large platforms are adopting ActivityPub is not only validation of the movement towards decentralized social media, but a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers. Mastodon CEO Eugen had written a post regarding the Threads launch and wrote that it put pressure on platforms to provide better, less exploitative services.
On Wednesday, Threads’ launch day, Mark Zuckerberg posted about his desire to usurp Elon Musk’s broken social network: “I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it,” he wrote. Hopefully we will.
Meta will have to fight off other would-be killers such as Bluesky, Mastodon, Post News, Spoutible, Cohost, Hive Social, and T2 Social, along with right-wing discussion platforms, like Truth Social.
It is far too early to say if Threads will succeed. Or, for that matter, whether any of these competitors can scale into real Twitter substitutes. What is painfully clear is that we, the people of the internet, need to draw a line in the sand. We have to dump concrete into the line so it cannot be quickly eroded by waves.
What is painfully clear is that we, the people of the internet, need to draw a line in the sand. Then we need to dump concrete into that line so it cannot be swiftly eroded by waves, or whatever.
Twitter and Stalled Words: How to Get More Views and Perturbations in the 21st Century without Devaluing the Twitter Pool
No one can stop tech companies from launching new platforms. But people can refuse to join. It’s so annoying that you have to find a way to balance between microblogging apps,Twitter and stalker and the same words for different audiences. Adding threading to the mix is too much. The best minds of the generation have been destroyed by copying and pasting. It is not a way to live.
Replicating the dynamic Twitter cultivated is unlikely. If the clones keep coming, the network effect needed to function as a true hub for public discourse will be meaningless, and the global conversation will be fracturing into a series of inferior smaller channels. We should not further devalue the pool as this will only weaken our options. I’d like to see Twitter restored to its pre-Musk functionality—but if that’s not going to happen, I’d rather pick one of the many wannabe water coolers I’ve already downloaded instead of cycling through imitator after imitator.