Social Networks

Before 2006 we talked about social networks. it’s only with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that the idea of social media emerged. With it came a golden age of online communities where Facebook was for Uni students to keep in contact with each other, Twitter was to microblog about project progress and more, and instagram was a place to share images taken during the daily commute to work, sporting ativities and more. At the time social networks were small, tightly knit communities that eventually wanted to meet in person, whether at tweetups, barcamps, and unconferences. The pandemic, and mass adoption changed these. The social networks unravelled and they became networks of strangers and friends of friends.

Threads Is Not About Community

Although Threads os over-hyped as a Twitter killer the real Twitter killer is Twitter. Until November people who wanted to flee couldn’t, because it had critical mass. It’s because of cascading mistakes that Mastodon even stood a chance of being noticed, that BlueSky and other apps were spun off, and that Threads was marketed. Threads is not a twitter replacement for the simple reason that it has no chronological timeline to see posts by the people you choose to follow. Threads, like Instagram and Facebook is just a glossy mag, where an algorithm chooses what you see, or don’t see.

Live Radio and WinAmp Analogy

Imagine that you decide to listen to music. You have two choices. You can listen to live radio, with adverts, paid promotions, a little dj chatter and music that was chosen either by the DJ or a musical algorithm. The choice isn’t yours.

In contrast with Winamp you have no adverts, you have no dj. You have complete control on whether you want to play songs, choosing each one, playing a playlist, or allowing an algorithm tho choose depending on your mood or most played songs.

Both fall within the scope of listening to music, but one is entirely controlled by the listener, and the other is controlled from above, by the radio station

How it ties in to Social Media

Threads is seen as a Twitter killer and the media love it but threads is an algorithm driven social media option where the user is not controlling their own experience. The higher ups are. If you use Facebook you see posts by strangers, not friends. If you use instagram every fourth post is influencer rubbish or an advert. The community has been weakened. I don’t expect Threads to be any different.

The Fediverse Alternative

By fleeing from Twitter to Threads you’re fleeing from the frying pan into the fire, rather than a bucket of ice. Twitter, Facebook et al are controlled by the same people, so by fleeing from one to the other you’re staying within the same sphere of influence.

In contrast, if you flee to the Fediverse, then you’re fleeing to the Winamp experience, where you are in control. You can choose which instance you want to be on, and yet you can chat with the global community if you like, or the local one. When I say local, I mean local to that server, not local to where you live, although if you had that desire then you could setup a local server instance for your physical world community.

The beauty of the Fediverse is that if you’re a blogger then you can add your blog to the fediverse natively, and have your own fediverse instance. You can microblog with it, if you like, or you can write full form blog posts. People can comment, like and more, and those will be mirrored on the blog, and the blog will mirror to the fediverse. It’s so dynamic that if you make a typo in a blog post that you have already published, you can correct it and it will propagate to your followers.

The Community

With the Fediverse, the more time you put into it, the more you will expand your network, and the more visible you become. You become visible, by chatting, commenting, liking and re-tooting and more. Algorithms are not used. Chronological timelines are. The more engaged you are, the more visible you are. With Mastodon you don’t need to enrage people, offend them and more. Being a conversationalist is the only requirement. It really does feel like Golden Age twitter, rather than what we have had since 2008 and beyond. It feels like a worthwhile network once more.

European Intuition

I can’t play with threads for two reasons. The first reason is that Threads requires an absurd amount of permissions, from health, to spending habits, to browsing history. In summary it requires every permission that an iphone app could ever ask for. Europe said no, so in Europe, for now, we can’t use the app. I browsed YouTube to see if I could find examples to see if I could find how different Threads is from Instagram and Facebook but couldn’t. What I did find were vlogs by people over-hyping the social network as revolutionary, and ground breaking.It isn’t. It’s the same pig, with different lipstick. To be clear, by pig I mean Facebook app, built to waste our time and sell adverts. The Fediverse and BlueSky are more fateful Twitter competitors but they don’t have a userbase of two billion people. To join the Fediverse or BlueSky either requires joining an instance or getting an invite.

Mainstream Media and Social Media Control

Threads is being pushed as the Twitter clone and killer for two reasons. The first is that it’s brand new so it attracts curiousity so it makes sense to over-hype the thing that people are curious about. The second reason is that the people who control and own social media also control and own mainstream media, so they’re promoting the product that they want to win.

My Perspective

From my perspeective Threads is not a Twitter clone, or a Twitter killer because it doesn’t see any value in allowing people to follow their friends. It sees no value in giving people a sleek user experience without adverts, and injecting influencer ‘content’. I want to use a stronger word but will remain polite.

Blue Sky has taken itself out of the running recently, because it has seed funding from venture capitalists, and we know that all websites that get VC funding eventually get destroyed.

The true contender, in my view, as a twitter replacement is Mastodon because it shows the values and morality of early Twitter. It’s a network of friends of friends having conversations across servers, timezones and more. With time communities willm strengthen and expand and eventually true communities will exist.

The Fediverse is already broad. It has Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, WordPress and more already playing nicely with it.

And Finally

If and when Threads connects to the fediverse we will suddenly have an enormous amount of noise, and the cult of personality, that helped destroy Twitter and Instagram will destroy the fediverse if people are not careful. Threads is already 70 million people.

Final Thought

At the time of writing this post the fediverse had 13 million accounts. Threads already has 70 million. When Threads connects into the fediverse, the fediverse will be diluted and destroyed by Threads users. People say “but we can’t build a wall to keep people off of the fediverse. If we don’t block Threads, we will have no refuge from big tech. Remember, we left big tech websites for a reason.