Threads and Europe

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Yesterday Facebook, discguised as meta, and Meta, disguised as Instagram launched Threads. Threads is meant to be a twitter competitor. The paradox is that Facebook has always been a twitter competitor, and this has become more evident with every iteration of both social networks. It is paradoxical that Facebook would need threads, to compete with Twitter.

Not Available in Europe

Threads, at the time of writing this blog post is not available in Europe because it requires data, which brings it in breach of GDPR rules. The only European Country where threads is authorised is England.

Commercial Use of Fediverse Data

Today I thought about the way in which Meta, through threads, could syphon data without user permissions for commercial use. Is Meta allowed to gather our data through the fediverse, and use it for commercial purposes or am I mistaken?

No Chronological friends timeline

I glimpsed a few lines that implied that Threads is a social network where we do not follow a chronological timeline of what our friends are posting. I left Facebook and Instagram because I had no desire to follow strangers that reminded me of what my life could be. It felt like a glossy magazine where you pay for adverts, rather than content. That is why we dumped plenty of magazines.

Why would you want to be on a network where you declare your friends, but see posts by strangers instead?

No Desire To Play

Although I should, I have no desire to play with threads and I read something that would worry me, if I was on Threads. Signing up to threads, via Instagram, binds both accounts. This means that you cannot delete your threads account, without also deleting instagram. Joining is easy, but once you’re in, you’re locked in. You can’t change your mind. You can deactivate your account but nothing more.

The Paradox of Competition

Although Threads is seen as competing with Twitter I think this is a flawed perspective. In so far as I can see Twitter is self-destructing itself. Mastodon, BlueSky, Threads and other apps don’t need to take active measures. Simply exiting as an alternative to Twitter is enough. Remember that Mastodon has been around for years, and that it only became of interest because people did not agree with Twitter’s new direction. It’s not that BlueSky, Mastodon or Threads are stealing users, it’s that Twitter is driving them away. Twitter is pushing people towards the competition. The Social Media Migration peaks are as a direct consequence of moves made by Musk and Twitter, not the other way around. Twitter blames others, instead of analysing how its behaviour is the push factor.

And Finally

Threads “by Instagram” is just Facebook, rebranded, for those that are not attentive enough to realise that Threads and Facebook are basically the same thing, but rebranded to avoid some of the stigma that Meta collects, without ever apologising about.