Meta’s new social media app, Threads, aims to rival Twitter by promising a more sanitised and ‘friendly’ user experience. However, critics fear it’s just another step towards increased censorship and a return to the pre-Musk era of limited free speech. Spiked has the story.
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter last year, the people formerly known as ‘blue ticks’ have been threatening to flounce off. Twitter, they say, has become an unusable hellhole, rife with disinformation and proto-fascist hate speech. A great Twitter exodus has been promised once every few months, yet still they have carried on tweeting.
Why did so few of them ever leave Twitter? The main barrier has been the lack of a viable alternative. Twitter, for good or ill, has remained the world’s public square. But that could be about to change. This week, Threads, the new social-media app from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, was launched to huge fanfare. It has been explicitly pitched as a rival to Twitter. Within the first 24 hours of its launch, 30 million users are said to have signed up.
Threads is effectively a clone of Twitter. It is a ‘text-based social app’ or ‘microblogging service’. As with Twitter, posts on Threads have strict character limits. Twitter’s retweet function has become ‘repost’ and quote tweets have become ‘quote threads’. Even the name Threads seems to be a nod to a ‘Twitter thread’ – a connected series of tweets, posted by the same Twitter user, to get around the character limit.
The similarities between the two rival apps are so stark and so noticeable that Twitter has threatened to take legal action against Meta. Meta has hardly tried to hide the similarities, either. Earlier this week, Zuckerberg posted his first tweet in over a decade. It was of the Spiderman meme – where two men in exactly the same Spiderman outfit point at each other, unable to tell the real thing from the imposter. Besides, ripoffs of other platforms are not unknown at Meta. For instance, Instagram Stories are a shameless copy of Snapchat, while Instagram’s Reels feature is an obvious imitation of TikTok.
So, with all its similarities to Twitter, why would anyone feel the need to move over to Threads? The main draw for the great and the good is that Threads is promising a more sanitised social-media experience. This is what Zuckerberg rather creepily refers to as its commitment to ‘friendliness’. “We are definitely focussing on kindness and making this a friendly space”, Zuckerberg said in response to an early Threads user this week. “The goal is to keep [Threads] friendly as it expands”, he explained to another. …
Of course, the only way to maintain such ‘friendliness’ is through censorship; through the harsh application of rules, community guidance and codes of conduct. This means the deletion or downgrading of posts that are seen as unkind or unfriendly. Indeed, on Threads’ first day of operations, users already reported having their posts taken down, mainly for political reasons. Some accounts say they are being blacklisted or greylisted. When you try to follow a ‘problematic’ person on Threads, you might be warned that their account has ‘posted false information’ or has violated ‘community guidelines’. Censorship techniques that have been honed by Meta on Facebook and Instagram are already being zealously deployed on Threads.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Seems reasonable to me, as a user you can choose between the sanitised walled garden or the wild west town square. Free competition of ideas. I couldn’t be arsed with either.
This one goes out specially for my number 1 fan ( OK, that’s maybe laying it on a bit thick ), Jane G, because I know she appreciates my penchant for random posts and general non-conformity.
What do you think, Jane? Body Dysmorphia or Gender Dysphoria? I’m thinking it’s a combo of the two. Or I could just be jealous because I’d never get away with wearing a bather like that.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1678056233906081794
Thanks for that – just made it to the toilet before losing my tea.
Haven’t got the balls for it?
Actually I think I don’t have enough junk in my trunk!
‘Censorious’ does not mean prone to censor, just ‘vocally judgemental’. Bad enough, of course.
Agree. The headline should read “censored”, not censorious.
Only one opinion allowed on some social media?
If you agree with Z-Meta then you are ‘friendly’?