Threads in Europe

A few weeks ago Facebook (I refuse to whitewash that company by calling it Meta) decided to blackmail European users. The deal was simple. We were coerced. “Accept to pay for Facebook or we will force you to see ads. This was a lose lose situation that the European Union is now fighting. Imagine being given this choice. If you pay you’re going to be rewarding a company that has abused us.

Facebook Never Apologises for Being Immoral

Facebook enabled the spread of a genocidal message, it enabled the spread of disinformation to get both Trump elected and Brexit to be agreed to. It also experimented with making people more than once. Despite all of this Facebook never apologised.

When I was given the ultimatum of Pay up or you have consented for us to use your data they blackmailed us into either paying “protection money”, or being subjected to targeted advertising. It would give Facebook an excuse to say “But they agreed to us abusing of the data we have on them, and using profiling to manipulate them.

Pay or Be Data Mined

I got side tracked. The real issue is that people being given the choice to pay for facebook, or be manipulated Facebook could say “We gave Europeans the choice, and they chose to give their data rather than their money. This isn’t a choice. There are two to three billion users. It has a monopoly position so we can be isolated by not using Facebook, or exploited, by being on Facebook.

The Nuissance of Algorithms

I created my Threads account to preserve my username rather than out of a desire to use the social network. Instagram, Threads and Facebook all have the same problem. They force us to see crap generated by influencers and strangers, rather than friends. You can pay not to see ads, but you can’t pay to avoid the toxic posts by influencers. By toxic I mean anything that may have a negative effect on our mental well being, whether reminding us of our solitude, of our not being at an event, of not being at the right point at the right age in life and more.

Toxic Facebook

Instagram, for me, and many others, is toxic. I believe that Threads will be just as toxic. I noticed for example that we’re encouraged to like, rather than comment. Years ago I found that social media became far lonelier when people started to like rather than comment, reply or other. A like is a metric, a statistic. A comment is personal.

Social Networks Need to Be Organic

Social networks need to be organic. They need to encourage people to converse with each other, and to converse with the friends of friends. Social network should connect like minded people who have the time for each other, at a manageable scale.

After just a few minutes of using Threads I see posts by people with 4000 or more likes, hundreds of comments and more. My response is “I’m being forced to see content by people who will never reciprocate the attention. I am being spammed by influencers and other toxic individuals.

Of course, I could strive for finding something that 4000 people like, or three hundred people comment on but that’s not what social media is about. Social media is about a convivial intimate conversation between tight knit friends that eventually want to meet in person, rather than stay online. Facebook doesn’t encourage organic social network growth. It encourages the cult of personality. It amplifies the sentiment of being alone and lonely, of being ignored.

The Strength of 2006-2007 Twitter

The strength of social networks, including Twitter is that you started from a blank slate. If you had one friend you saw their posts, and their replies. If you had two friends, then you saw the same. The more active your social network became, the larger your circle of friends and contacts. There was a reward for investing time and attention on a social network.

With Threads we don’t have this. We see posts that are chosen by an algorithm that has nothing to do with our social graph. This is noise, and this devalues Threads because we spend more time dealing with noise, than worthwhile posts by friends.

And Finally

One of the greatest problems with Facebook is that it has a monopoly. It has Facebook, Threads, Instagram and Whatsapp. It has over two billion users. Whether you’re an early adopter, a late adopter, or a normal person, people with similar interests are on Facebook platforms so we’re forced to be there as well. Facebook has a monopoly, especially since the death of Twitter.

It’s a shame that social media has become a fight for attention, rather than an organic conversation between friends, colleagues and people who do specific activities together. Now is the time to use Threads obsessively to become visible, but I believe that I will end up feeling more solitude, rather than less.