Why the Early Success of Threads May Crash Into Reality (nytimes.com) 175
Mark Zuckerberg has used Meta's might to push Threads to a fast start -- but that may only work up to a point. Mike Isaac, writing at The New York Times: A big tech company with billions of users introduces a new social network. Leveraging the popularity and scale of its existing products, the company intends to make the new social platform a success. In doing so, it also plans to squash a leading competitor's app. If this sounds like Instagram's new Threads app and its push against its rival Twitter, think again. The year was 2011 and Google had just rolled out a social network called Google+, which was aimed as its "Facebook killer." Google thrust the new site in front of many of its users who relied on its search and other products, expanding Google+ to more than 90 million users within the first year.
But by 2018, Google+ was relegated to the ash heap of history. Despite the internet search giant's enormous audience, its social network failed to catch on as people continued flocking to Facebook -- and later to Instagram and other social apps. In the history of Silicon Valley, big tech companies have often become even bigger tech companies by using their scale as a built-in advantage. But as Google+ shows, bigness alone is no guarantee of winning the fickle and faddish social media market.
This is the challenge that Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, now faces as he tries to dislodge Twitter and make Threads the prime app for real-time, public conversations. If tech history is any guide, size and scale are solid footholds -- but ultimately can only go so far. What comes next is much harder. Mr. Zuckerberg needs people to be able to find friends and influencers on Threads in the serendipitous and sometimes weird ways that Twitter managed to accomplish. He needs to make sure Threads isn't filled with spam and grifters. He needs people to be patient about app updates that are in the works.
But by 2018, Google+ was relegated to the ash heap of history. Despite the internet search giant's enormous audience, its social network failed to catch on as people continued flocking to Facebook -- and later to Instagram and other social apps. In the history of Silicon Valley, big tech companies have often become even bigger tech companies by using their scale as a built-in advantage. But as Google+ shows, bigness alone is no guarantee of winning the fickle and faddish social media market.
This is the challenge that Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, now faces as he tries to dislodge Twitter and make Threads the prime app for real-time, public conversations. If tech history is any guide, size and scale are solid footholds -- but ultimately can only go so far. What comes next is much harder. Mr. Zuckerberg needs people to be able to find friends and influencers on Threads in the serendipitous and sometimes weird ways that Twitter managed to accomplish. He needs to make sure Threads isn't filled with spam and grifters. He needs people to be patient about app updates that are in the works.
Instagram (Score:4, Insightful)
Threads isn't anything except an Instagram plugin, that once engaged cannot be revoked. Not really a separate entity at all.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have an Insta account but from what I've heard, you can de-activate the Threads profile.
This certainly lowers the barrier to entry but otoh it requires a separate app and there isn't even a web version. So that's not great.
We'll have to wait and see, the low barrier will certainly mean high growth early on, but if it sucks, they won't stick around for long.
Re: Instagram (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I think Meta is underestimating the utility of Twitter links that work over the web. I know Meta wants the full user tracking they get via the app, but the people that really drive Twitter content really want the reach those web links give them. It could be the difference between Threads breaking Twitterâ(TM)s back vs Threads becoming the next Google+.
Re: Instagram (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
So here's a problem with their approach:
1. someone creates an Instagram account a year ago, but never really used it for much
2. they get a link to something hosted on Instagram, and Instagram requires a login to view it
3. when they try to log in, they are asked to get some MFA code from their email to verify they are who they say they are
4. when they go to their email, they never receive the code because their email provider (Google Workspace, i.e. the paid-for gmail) doesn't receive the confirmation email,
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bleh (Score:5, Informative)
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Yep.
I'm not sure what tactics Threads is using to gain user accounts so fast but I'm betting it involves tricking Instagram users into doing something they'll regret later.
It won't be because the app is so fucking awesome that it went viral all by itself.
Product distinction (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget the censorship.
Reports I've read about threads seem to indicate that it's got more censorship than twitter pre-musk had. Musk has an explicit plan for making twitter have "trust as a service" (he said that explicitly), so he's focused on accuracy and not censorship. Anyone can say anything, but an outright lie will get a community notes addendum showing people where to go for more information. This has caught a lot of MSM twitter users unawares, which is quite entertaining.
Note that twitter nev
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"but ultimately a company comes from the vision and creativity of its founder" didn't stop MS from infecting damn near everything with their malware.
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"but ultimately a company comes from the vision and creativity of its founder" didn't stop MS from infecting damn near everything with their malware.
It didn't stop them because it was the source of their success. Gates/Ballmer/etc. had incredible vision and creativity for business expansion and acquisitions. Not for designing user-beloved software.
Microsoft products are beloved by PHBs and C-level execs who want safety and stability and "knowns" that all their golf club buddies are also using, without having to shell out the dollar-cost differential for the Apple/Adobe products of those first couple decades.
Re:Product distinction (Score:5, Informative)
Reports I've read about threads seem to indicate that it's got more censorship than twitter pre-musk had. Musk has an explicit plan for making twitter have "trust as a service" (he said that explicitly), so he's focused on accuracy and not censorship. Anyone can say anything, but an outright lie will get a community notes addendum showing people where to go for more information. This has caught a lot of MSM twitter users unawares, which is quite entertaining.
Note that twitter never turned a profit, and was hemorrhaging money at the time Musk took over - something like losing $1B each month with $4B in cash reserves.
Twitter has been profitable all but two quarters since 2018: https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
How's this for accuracy.
Also of note, Elon has successfully created many companies based on ideas he has, while Mark has only had one idea and there's evidence that it wasn't his idea to begin with. It's not immediately clear that Mark has the ability to have and develop any new ideas. He can hire people for implementation and management, but ultimately a company comes from the vision and creativity of its founder. Mark Zuckerberg has not shown a lot of creativity in his career.
And which companies are those?
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Reports I've read about threads seem to indicate that it's got more censorship than twitter pre-musk had. Musk has an explicit plan for making twitter have "trust as a service" (he said that explicitly), so he's focused on accuracy and not censorship. Anyone can say anything, but an outright lie will get a community notes addendum showing people where to go for more information.
Oh yeah, accuracy and not censorship. https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
Totally not interfering with search results and throttling traffic to people he doesn't like. https://archive.is/oPaN5 [archive.is]
The jet tracker account is another good one. Apparently his free speech absolutism does have a limit. https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
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The Indian government issued notices to Twitter to remove people in the aftermath of an internet shutdown in Punjab during the search for a fugitive Sikh separatist leader.
Twitter agreed to block more than 120 accounts
The government asked for censorship and he bowed. Freedom of speech indeed.
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Musk has an explicit plan for making twitter have "trust as a service" (he said that explicitly), so he's focused on accuracy and not censorship.
Musk might say that but his actions are another matter. If trust was so important why did he create a subscription to buy verification marks so poorly implemented that fake accounts immediately appeared causing in one case financial harm to a company. The issue with Musk is that he wants HIS version of accuracy and his version of censorship all while pretending that he is in it for the public good.
Re:Product distinction (Score:4, Informative)
Also of note, Elon has successfully created many companies
s/created/bought his way into/g
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The big edge Meta has over Twitter is that Threads doesn't have to make money on its own if it has a significantly positive impact on Metas overall lineup where as all Twitter has is Twitter so it's got to make money on its own eventually.
...but other than the "it's not Musk!" factor I don't know what the product distinction for threads is. Given the choice of these 2 companies, why would one choose threads over twitter?
I think Thread's offering of a well curated space for people to talk as opposed to Twitters new policy of mostly just censoring content that personally bothers Musk https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com] is it's big selling point. Lots of folks like their social media without
Re:Product distinction (Score:4, Informative)
Twitter hasn't been profitable since 2019, but they were losing nowhere near $1 Billion per month. They had a loss of "only" $221 million for the entire year of 2021. [arstechnica.com]
Even Musk didn't claim $1 Billion per month:
When making Twitter's first round of cuts in November, Musk tweeted that "unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. [businessinsider.com]"
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Don't forget the censorship.
Reports I've read about threads seem to indicate that it's got more censorship than twitter pre-musk had.
By censorship you mean moderation?
The one persistent complaint that pre-Musk Twitter had was all the abuse that drove many people (including celebrities) off of the site.
Given that Musk is taking Twitter in a direction to make the abuse even worse I'd expect Threads to make stronger moderation a selling point.
Musk has an explicit plan for making twitter have "trust as a service" (he said that explicitly),
He also had a plan to move everyone to paid subscriptions, we all know how that turned out.
so he's focused on accuracy and not censorship. Anyone can say anything, but an outright lie will get a community notes addendum showing people where to go for more information.
So will Twitter still put up notices about COVID disinformation and election conspiracies? Because that seemed
Contract versus sales (Score:4, Interesting)
Didn't we just have a Supreme Court ruling about wedding websites not having to have LGBTQ+ messages on them?
The supreme court also ruled that for wedding cakes.
The ruling isn't about what you think it's about - it's about contract labor. Both the website and wedding cake were extra labor above and beyond a standard product, which amounted to a contract for doing extra labor. You can't be forced into a contract to do something you don't want to do.
In the wedding cake example, the owners explicitly stated that they were happy to sell the couple any of the existing cakes in their window, essentially any cake that they would sell to the general public.
But the wedding cake owners didn't want to enter into a contract to decorate a cake (that didn't yet exist) in the manner of the gay couple, and the website content creators didn't want to craft a custom site with LGBTQ+ messages.
The supreme court decided, rightly IMO, that forcing people into a contract is a bad idea.
And apropos of nothing, you should always use the correct framing when bringing these issues up. Instead of saying "websites having LGBTQ+ messages", which the court did not rule on, and by itself is perfectly legal, you should say "content creators compelled to add LGBTQ+ messages".
Or similar.
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You may be right about the wedding cake, but not about the website. The people that sued about not having to make a gay website were never asked to. They made that part up. And still, the "conservative" supreme court heard and ruled on the case, even though they hd no standing. It is all a
G+ failed (Score:2)
Because it was crap compared to other services.
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FWIW I kinda liked G+. It made it really easy to choose who to see, with different lists, etc.. It had a great browser interface, which is a big plus for me (ha!) Also overall I'm a fan of Twitter.
I'd say Threads is becoming a bit of a nuisance already, because you can't control who you see. There's just a 'timeline'. Not of who you're following, but of 'everyone'. If you're seeing something you don't want to, your only option really is to 'mute' accounts, which is a crappy way to go about this. But otherwi
Google Gave Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has a long history of giving up if they don't experience immediate overwhelming success. Google certainly could have afforded to keep Google+ going, and everyone has a Google account. Over time it is almost certain that they would have at least been able to put pressure on Meta in that space. It's not like Meta never makes missteps.
That's just not what Google did.
Personally, I think it is likely that Twitter is particularly vulnerable. Investing in Threads definitely seems like a better investment for Meta than Virtual Reality.
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Or like with gtalk, replaced by hangouts, replaced by gchat.
I cannot decide who I dislike most ... (Score:2)
Musk or Zuck; they are both unpleasant characters who only care about themselves. There seems to be an assumption that only one micro-blogging platform can survive: Twitter or Threads. There might be room for both or maybe another could become dominant. There is no real lock in, nothing to stop people from using more than one. Personally I have no interest in either of them.
I disagree that the two cases are equivalent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I disagree that the two cases are equivalent (Score:5, Insightful)
As for having a microblogging service for public announcements, things are getting worse. It seems Twitter now requires all readers to have an account, and Threads requires a phone app, and I think an account. Is anything in the Fediverse or elsewhere available for public announcement microblogging, as it was once called? In other words, a built infrastructure, as opposed to software to run. At a reasonable cost I could see companies paying for it SaaS, but for public agencies procurement is a giant hurdle, and for journalists, for whom Twitter was perfect, demanding money is even more of a problem. The ethics of editorial control and payment are likely too tricky to handle for legit journalism enterprises. On the one hand, paying to publish would go against the grain. On the other hand, advertorials are by ethics walled off from news.
Dumb comparison (Score:3)
G+ was loved by it's users, offered better visual functionality for artists and photographers than others at the time, and had engaging discussion. It didn't take down Farcebook because it was a different platform for a different purpose.
It also was something new/different at a time nobody was looking for a change.
As much as I loathe Facebork and that company, Threads is hitting at the right time, and has an already related user base in Insta. If FB was going through what Twitter currently is, and most were looking to jump ship when G+ came along, it'd be a no brainer. There's a dearth of platforms right when folks are seeking a new platform. The only way Threads would've been timed better was a bit earlier and not during the summer online usage slump.
Google also failed to understand how to capitalize on G+ as a product. They were focused on ID but imagine if they'd used all those conversations and images for generative AI? Treated it like gmail to offer marketing demographics to their advertisers? Instead of seeking to compete with others, they could've grown themselves.
The situation though, is apples and oranges. This is more Amazon coming along with Sears missing the boat.
Meta's bigger challenge, one that I welcome... (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope that Threads does kill off Twitter, and that Meta is then the only player in the social networking space.
Why? Because that will make them subject of anti-trust and will force the breakup of the company into smaller pieces.
Meta has its fingers in so many pies, it has so many sources now to gather information from our daily lives, either directly or indirectly... I would welcome them becoming dominant and then subject to anti-trust breakup if only to disrupt the single company from collecting all of that data in one place from all sources.
Big shock (Score:2)
Most people don't like seeing literal nazis and white nationalists in their feeds. When you have right wing groups literally quoting Hitler in their newsletter you know the mask is off. https://apnews.com/article/mom... [apnews.com]
You know we did fight a war over these people.
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Hey, I can quote Hitler and appeal to the leftists. Proof:
"God-Damned Russians!"
Its not the same (Score:2)
Threads is a social media company attempting to replace a hole in the marked caused by the degradation of Twitter.
One big difference (Score:2)
When Google rolled out Google+, Facebook wasn't in the middle of a massive implosion caused by a reckless and impulsive CEO. Twitter is.
Fifth time’s the charm? (Score:2)
Faulty reasoning, but the author knows that. (Score:2)
The author likely knows that "one possible things happened in the past, so it can happen again" is garbage logic.
Google Pages failed because Facebook was still healthy
Twitter is sick and weak
You can't build an "XXX killer" by copying it (Score:3)
That was something a lot of "WOW-Killers" had to learn, that's something Google learned with Google+, that's something Zuck will learn with his threadbare crap.
If you build an identical clone, you will not get any users. Those that want this already have what they want in the original and won't jump ship for yours because they'd essentially have to start over while they already have what they want where they are. And those that turned away from it in disgust will not jump onto yours for being the exactly same experience.
The only way you can have success is by finding out what people hate about the service (preferably the people using it right now) and do THAT.
Re: (Score:2)
That was something a lot of "WOW-Killers" had to learn, that's something Google learned with Google+, that's something Zuck will learn with his threadbare crap.
If you build an identical clone, you will not get any users. Those that want this already have what they want in the original and won't jump ship for yours because they'd essentially have to start over while they already have what they want where they are. And those that turned away from it in disgust will not jump onto yours for being the exactly same experience.
The only way you can have success is by finding out what people hate about the service (preferably the people using it right now) and do THAT.
Well Zuckerberg killed MySpace.
He did it by making Facebook less icky than MySpace which was full of teenagers and rumours of predators.
It's the same thing he's doing with Threads, upping the moderation to get rid of the abuse that was bad even pre-Musk.
The other big mistake that Google made with Google+ is they went after FB when FB was at its peak. Twitter on the other hand is as weak as it's ever been. People have not only been wanting Twitter to die for months but multiple companies have popped up to jo
Two problems with this comparison (Score:2)
First, Google wasn't a social media company, so although they had lots of users, those users weren't already connecting socially through Google. That made G+ a lot less compelling. But Facebook users are already making those social connections on the platform, so something Twitter-like is a natural extension of the FB ecosystem.
Second, Google often doesn't commit to its products and do whatever it takes to make them succeed. They're legendary for tossing stuff out there half-heartedly, often then abandoning
may might could (Score:2)
It's now the merry month of "may". Wake me when it's over.
100 Million users, and none of them are bots... (Score:2)
TBF Google was never a good product designer (Score:2)
To be fair of course. Google was great because of its free products and then later on its enterprise services:
* Its search engine / Ads
* Gmail
* Google Maps
* YouTube
* Google Docs / Business Suite
* Android
* GCP (Google Cloud Platform)
Google has axed numerous applications, services, and tools that have been lost into obscurity. It's sitting on 100+ Billion in cash and doesn't know what to do with any of it. But I don't think anyone can applaud Google for being visually stunning or intuitive in any of its ap
There's really two questions (Score:3)
1. How many users signed up just for Threads? It's linked to Instagram, so I imagine that many people added Threads to their existing Instagram account because it's one more thing to add. It doesn't necessarily mean they are going to be active or useful Threads users.
2. How many users left Twitter for Threads? I see Twitter users making Threads accounts (possibly because they already have Meta stuff and it's easy to do it), but it's not a "Twitter killer" unless it actually draws users away from using Twitter.
Re: (Score:2)
I think I had 90 people in my circles on Google+. Unless it was merely one prolific robot...
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The problem with Google+ was that google tried to make it a SSO (Single Sign on) well before there was a point to it.
So now your "Google+" was also your gmail, youtube, maps, android, etc accounts, and should Google kill any services, or the service itself, (which did happen), all this stuff attached to it was in peril. Get banned from something, and you get locked out of everything.
Ultimately Google+ was demoted to just the SSO because it was now unremovable. Same with Microsoft's "MSN" account which later
Re: 90 million users (Score:2)
Re: 90 million users (Score:2)
Just because you didn't use it doesn't mean no one else did. There was definitely a drop-off after a year or two, but it was quite vibrant for a while. I personally had 40 or so people I knew personally IRL who I engaged with on +.
Re: (Score:2)
Just because you used it doesn't mean anyone else did.
Of course. (Score:3)
That's what people do.
Although for some reason I do still see cabbage for sale at local grocery stores. I thought the world was on board with me about that not being needed...
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Although for some reason I do still see cabbage for sale at local grocery stores. I thought the world was on board with me about that not being needed..
We agreed on kale, not cabbage.
Re: Of course. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And you extrapolate from your own case to all of humanity?
He used it, so if we extrapolate to all humanity it would mean that there have been 8 billion users. Not bad.
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I am pretty sure that people are just flocking to Threads to reserve their handle and check it out.
The shine will eventually wear off and/or the platform will become a cesspool just like the "other" platform.
Re:They hate Elon (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is forgetting that Meta and Zuck sucks, Elmo's just been doing his best to make everyone know that he is, in fact, the worst.
Re: They hate Elon (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I like all the things SpaceX is doing, but that doesn't make Elon a good guy. I could rattle off a list of evil engineers or scientists that contributed to humanity's advancement (regarding rocketry, Arthur Rudolph and Georg Rickhey come to mind). Doesn't mean we should be OK with their BS.
Re:They hate Elon (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook is taking advantage of Twitter's problems. Musk is wrecking it and right now there is an opportunity for a competitor to come in and replace Twitter.
Google+ failed because it didn't offer any unique features. Thread's unique feature is that it's like the old Twitter, and not run by Elon Musk.
As for Facebook's past, that's why they have positioned Threads as a spin-off of Instagram. A lot of people don't seem to realize that Facebook owns Instagram, and that brand hasn't been tarnished so much.
Re: (Score:2)
Thread's unique feature is that it's like the old Twitter, and not run by Elon Musk.
What's the saying? "If you think the old boss is a dick, wait till you meet the new boss." I know that's not right, but close enough.
Re:They hate Elon (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly I disagree with the "didn't have any new features". To me circles was the one thing that made me actually have interest in social media for a brief time. As facebook got more universal, and it hit the point where everywhere you work, go to school socialize etc... people ask you for your facebook. Then of course being moderately responsible I think before I post anything "nah can't post this it could be a sore spot for my co-workers", "can't post about this might start an arguement with these people", Then when it get's out of controversial it's still "probably shouldn't post on video games because 3/4ths of the people on my list don't care about games", etc....
Circles was a good feature in that you could very easily post about games, and only have it seen by the gamers, and you could post inside jokes for friends at a specific job or place etc... as well as post on controversial topics and know you didn't include people who would be offended etc...
If you ask me the real flaw was the auto sign up pissed off a lot of people, and maybe the point of the feature was lost on most. Maybe people who like social media are mainly the kind of people that like to shout out their opinions on everything to everyone without care of if anyone cares or who might be offended.
Re:They hate Elon (Score:5, Insightful)
It regularly fails to load any data, and when it does is slow and choppy. Media is hit and miss as to whether it actually plays/appears when you click on a thumbnail.
Good replies are buried beneath a pile of blue check crypto scams and hate rants.
I just want some links to articles of writers I like and Threads is giving me that with some random intstagram people mixed in (meh).
And finally yeah, the owner being a steaming pile of dog shit is something. Richest guy in the world, yet an absolute pathetic loser.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If you look at everything as an absolute, you are an idiot. You seem to be looking at everything as an absolute here. I don't think that people really thing Zukerberg is an angel. The choice to prefer Zukerberg over Musk is entirely rational and based on actual differences between the two.
You are creating a strawman argument when you say that "lefties", as you call them, somehow like Zukerberg. Sorry, nope. Just that he is much less evil that Musk.
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Where has anyone in this debate ever said Zuck is an angel? You're making this all up.
What Lefties are actually saying in regards to this in real life is that they prefer Zuck to Musk, not that Zuck is awesome.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The NYT soured on Elon ever since he revealed his conservative leanings. Disagreement with left wing orthodoxy shall not be tolerated. I personally thought Elon was a buffoon but have come to appreciate his stance on free speech, even if his taking over of Twitter has been messy.
https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percent-of-reporters-identify-as-republican-188053
https://www.mrc.org/liberal-mediaevery-poll-shows-journalists-are-more-liberal-american-public-and-public-knows-it
https://www.in
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you polled trade workers and the military you'd find the opposite, that most are republican.
What is your point? We know educated people tend to lean left and most reporters have a college education.
Nice spin (Score:5, Insightful)
What wonderful spin you've put on the issue. And the claim of conservative victimhood is very "current culture war" stylish so you've got that going for you too.
I would perhaps frame it more as lots of people don't like their social media feeds to be spewing hate speech at them and now that Musk has taken over that has become a significant problem https://www.montclair.edu/news... [montclair.edu] .
No one cares about conservatives who aren't spewing hate speech so no, outside of the possibility of some odd ball scenarios this isn't about conservatives being horribly victimized.
Re:Nice spin (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The 1st amendment very specifically says government can't abridge our right to free speech. Private entities on the other hand have the right to host or not host any content they want, this is aligned both with their own free speech and property rights.
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That's fair. Personally, I prefer spending time in environments that dont promote hateful things that they very much dont have to and thus prefer platforms that exercise a decent level of curation. Old Twitter's moderation could be problematic at times but current moderation being almost nonexistent has really brought out a lot of hateful stuff https://www.nytimes.com/2022/1... [nytimes.com]. that Twitter is now effectively promoting by keeping around. I have zero interest in engaging in an online community that has such
Re: (Score:2)
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The proper answer to hate speech is more free speech (countering it)
and yet as we've already discussed Musk's hands off approach to Twitter has increased hateful speech, not decreased it.
While I agree that government should only very rarely be involved in censorship (as it is now here in the US) I think there is an inherent responsibility of any citizen of any country to promote virtue over hate as inaction is as good as promotion in many cases so I'm happy when social media shows hate speech the door. For instance, if a crowd of white people ignore a minority being clearly
Re:Nice spin (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm more worried about having a government (any government) that arbitrarily gets to define what constitutes hate speech, rather than having to deal with people (online or elsewhere) I disagree with, even if I disagree vehemently with them (like say racists, homophobes or antisemites).
But Twitter isn't a government. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press were intended to prevent governments from stifling free expression, because you can't just walk away from the government and say, "I'm going to make my own country with blackjack and hookers." Private businesses are treated differently precisely because you *can* walk away and start your own.
Any jacka** with a few million bucks can build a social media platform. If the lunatic fringe on the far right feels stifled, they can feel free to create a social media cesspool with no moderation at all. Nothing is stopping them. In fact, they have already created their own social media platform at least twice, and possibly more.
Nobody came.
You see, that's the thing. You have a right to say what you want. You don't have a right to force people to listen. Removing moderation on Twitter is trying to force people to listen, and that usually doesn't end well.
If Twitter stays on this course, they'll eventually find themselves falling to about a million DAU, just like those two right-wing-utopia social media sites did. The only thing propping them up right now is momentum.
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Twitter isn't the government. Yet the administration has been in close contact with Twitter to silence speech. https://www.wsj.com/articles/j... [wsj.com]
Ignore the above at your peril.
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Twitter isn't the government. Yet the administration has been in close contact with Twitter to silence speech. https://www.wsj.com/articles/j... [wsj.com]
I don't really care. The first amendment is a ban on passing laws criminalizing speech, not a ban on individual members of the government asking businesses to not publish something that they find offensive. Those members of government still have free speech rights, last time I checked, same as everyone else.
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A federal judge issued a broad preliminary injunction limiting the federal government from communicating with social-media companies about online content, ruling that Biden administration officials’ policing of social-media posts likely violated the First Amendment.
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The fact that you care or not is irrelevant. What that judge does/says is relevant though.
A federal judge issued a broad preliminary injunction limiting the federal government from communicating with social-media companies about online content, ruling that Biden administration officials’ policing of social-media posts likely violated the First Amendment.
A judge issuing a preliminary injunction is not inherently an indication of how a case will ultimately be decided. Bear in mind that the conservative SCOTUS is likely to take a much narrower view of the law.
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I mean this is even worse. This is the executive branch of the government censoring speech without legislation. It's way worse. Look up the definition of fascism.
How is that worse? It is legislation that gives them any authority to compel such censorship. Without legislation, the social media companies can just say, "Go f**k yourself" whenever someone asks them to censor something. If they did not do so, then it's a pretty good indication that they agreed with the administration's recommendation, and that they would have done that anyway eventually, even without a government official asking them to do so. At best, it just gave them someone to blame if the decisi
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But Twitter isn't a government. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press were intended to prevent governments from stifling free expression, because you can't just walk away from the government and say, "I'm going to make my own country with blackjack and hookers." Private businesses are treated differently precisely because you *can* walk away and start your own.
The federal government is prohibited from using a private corporation as a proxy to do what they are forbidden to do. But, that is precisely what the what was happening with Twitter.
Nope. Not correct. A private corporation cannot pass laws or enforce them. Therefore, the federal government was not using a private corporation to do what they are forbidden to do. Go read the first amendment again. Its meaning is quite clear. The fact that you want to expand it more broadly to restrict government officials from exercising their free speech rights by asking companies to not publish something doesn't change the fact that the first amendment applies only in the context of passing laws
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I don't know about the OP, but I don't. I think that a little less than half the country is voting for the fascists.
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Let me get this right. Do you equate right wing leanings with fascism? Do you think half the country is fascist?
One is a subset of the other. Fascists are far-right-wing; not all right-wingers are fascist.
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Allegedly, there is a saying in Germany that goes like: if there is a nazi at a table with ten other people who are talking to him, you've got a table with 11 nazis.
Most US Republicans are not self-identifying neo-nazis or fascists. But the party as a whole tolerates and encourages the fascist wing becoming ever more extreme in its rhetoric and actions. This is a very convenient system where the majority can feel like they're "normal people" while actually supporting blatant fascism. There was a literal cou
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Because ... bit of a dick? But then what billionaires arnt.
Being a dick is not the problem; Musk wants to make Twitter in his own image as his right as sole owner. Nobody has to stay on Twitter but no one should be surprised that his dick moves drives users away to other platforms. The main concern is his management style to introduce whatever he wants on a whim with little forethought. These constant and abrupt changes have caused mayhem. For example charging subscriptions for verification checkmarks but implementing so poorly that anyone could buy verification
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I look at it this way. Liberals loved twitter and it made Elon so angry that he had to buy twitter and ruin it.
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False equivalence. (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is notorious for killing off its projects. [gcemetery.co]
On the other hand, no Google CEO called anyone a cuck and challenged them to a literal dick measuring contest [vanityfair.com] at any point during Google+ existence.
Nor was the Google+ competition as eager to self-sabotage as Twitter's leadership is today. [www.cbc.ca]
So, Musk being a "bit of a dick" might actually be the cause of all his woes.
Namely, that it's a bit-sized issue.
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Just agree that everyone hates both of them, and that someone puts a big extra strength padlock on the octogon cage when they have their fight. Too bad Tina Turner isn't around anymore to adjudicate it.
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Because ... bit of a dick? But then what billionaires arnt.
However they're all conveniently forgetting Facebook/zuckerbergs past - cambridge analytica scandal anyone? Facial recognition of everyones pictures whether you wanted it or not?
They're just runnning from the bear straight into the mount of the lion.
FB has made serious missteps, as have many companies, but Zuckerberg understands one very important thing that Musk doesn't, it's not all about him.
I see very little of Zuckerberg saying/doing stuff for the sake of getting attention, I see very little of Zuckerberg trying to promote his personal politics through his company (even if you don't like their moderation rules, it's ostensibly done for non-partisan purposes).
As such, you can be a conservative and use FB without getting a bad taste in your mouth.
Mu
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us older voters aren't all the same, some monolithic entity
That's not unique to your demographic, not all liberals are "lefties", for example. But on the whole, OP is accurate on the assessment of the older generation of Republicans that are currently still in charge.
You mean like the Taliban? (Score:2)
Oh wait, they had an account under the old management.
I guess like most lefties you change your definition of extremist depending how much you disagree with them.
Re:Being censored as a service. (Score:4, Insightful)
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"making this a friendly place" seem to be code for "we will actually do something about all the hate speech, nazis and white nationalists".
Since the only things they "can do about it" amount to censorship: (Suppress, "shadow-ban", apply derogatory labels, down-modulate in search engine results, demonitize, etc.) I standby my characterization of the service.
And if you have to resort to a code-book to parse statements, you're likely to mis-parse them a lot. The claim that people are using code-words is a p
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Zuckerberg is promoting Threads as being better than Twitter because of its ongoing "focusing on kindness" and "making this a friendly place". Seems to me that amounts to selling being censored as a service.
Maybe for those who enjoy groupthink this would be fun and comfortable. "Snowflakes" could be protected from ideas that "trigger" them. But for becoming the canonical forum for free speech discussion and displacing an existing rival in that role, it seems a doomed strategy.
Perhaps he thinks it's a VHS/Betamax war and he's VHS.
Great, I'm looking forward to hearing from Bernie Sanders and AOC over at their Truth Social accounts? Oh they ban people who agree with liberals over there? How strange.
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If it censors "conservatives", then.... it will assuredly win because it will turn Twitter into a cesspool of trolls.
I can't believe I'm saying this. Zuck seems like a smart guy in this scenario.