Day: July 19, 2023

A few notes about the state of social media.

About three weeks ago I was struck by how Twitter seemed to have settled down. While there were still plenty of minor issues, the major blowups that had been endemic since the Tech Toddler’s arrived had decreased.

That’s not to say I was a happy user. The elimination of third party applications meant I was still spending lots of time dodging promoted Tweets and ads I had no interest in. While that was annoying, the fact that Twitter’s algorithm doesn’t seem to be all that intelligent is especially maddening. You would think after blocking/muting entire swaths of promoted political Tweets, they would stop showing up in my timeline. Yet each day I’m confronted by a new batch of them.

At least the platform seemed stable-ish. I doubted it would last, but still, you accept any positives you can find.

Then TT decided to make his latest in a series of baffling decisions, announcing several moves designed to make it harder to use the app.

So he buys a company that is struggling to make money, cuts the staff to the bone endangering its ability to remain online; pisses off tons of advertisers and users, wiping out any budget gains earned by his mass layoffs; and then decides to make it even more difficult for the remaining advertisers to get their campaigns in front of people. All the while making “Chess vs. checkers”-like comments without realizing he is the one playing checkers.

Why do we think this guy is smart, again?

Coincidentally just when the latest round of headaches arrived, I got my invitation to Bluesky, one of the more promising new Twitter competitors. I signed up, logged in, and worked to find people I followed over on Twitter. There weren’t many. I liked the interface and the controls. There just isn’t the volume of users, yet, to make it a viable alternative. I’m not sure many folks know about Bluesky, let alone have requested an invite to a service that is greatly limiting how many new users can join.

A few days later Meta dropped Threads on the world. I immediately activated my account. A lot more people from Twitter were there, although I was still way short of my entire list of Twitter follows. There were several who flat-out said they would not join until Twitter took its last, sad breath.

A few things jumped out at me right away, though. First, it also looked nice and seemed to function well. Meta knows how to run a service on a massive scale, so I figured at a minimum we don’t have to worry about it crashing as millions of people joined each hour.

However, I did not like the lack of a chronological timeline based solely on people I follow. I don’t want an algorithmic feed that is out-of-order and features people I have not chosen to follow. Meta claims this will change over time, but after two days checking it regularly, it did nothing to make me want to open it before Twitter.

Next, I hated how smug so many of the early, promoted Threads were. Tons of “This is so much better than Twitter!” type entries. Maybe Threads is way better than Twitter. But there’s no way to know that for sure less than a week in. Especially since a lot of those posts were making broad assessments about the future of the app that are not consistent with Meta’s history. It smacked of marketing run amok, an effort to convince users this was where we belonged rather than letting us determine that on our own.

Finally, there’s the whole Meta/Zuck factor. Of all the evil tech companies in the world, none is more evil than Meta.[1] Facebook has, time and again, ignored any privacy protections that get in the way of them making a buck. They’ve lied about what they do with user data. They’ve been fined for breaking laws, then continued to violate them. The company is shameless in their desire to sell out their users. And, of course, they are largely responsible for turning our political/electoral culture into an even more toxic wasteland than it already was.

If anyone thinks that Threads won’t, eventually, head down the same path that Facebook took, they are mistaken. Instagram is kind of an island in the midst of Meta’s evilness, and apparently folks from Instagram leadership are currently stewarding Threads. They claim they’re going to take steps to keep the new platform from becoming toxic. I don’t have very high confidence that will be true over time. And, inevitably, Threads will be overrun with ads. And more ads. And even more ads.

I have no problem being required to navigate ads in exchange for access to a social networking platform. What I do object to is the flood of ads that have zero relevance to my interests, something I know that Meta/Twitter/etc have tons of information on based on my follows, likes, etc. Instagram, again, is the one service that seems to have figured it out a little. If I flag a few ads as not being of interest to me, I generally don’t see them or ones like them again for a few weeks. That said, these days Instagram often feels like you see an ad for every 2–3 actual posts. So best case, Threads follows a similar pattern. Worst case, it becomes like Facebook and because a friend of a friend of a friend likes the My Patriotic Pillow guy, I will constantly see that garbage as well.

So what are we to do? I haven’t checked Bluesky or Threads for two weeks and, for the time being, I’m going to let them sit idle and stick with Twitter. I’ve been a user for a long, long time. It is generally my initial source for information on everything from sports to the news to pop culture.

It takes a lot of work on my part, muting/blocking people constantly, but at least I generally still see the posts and people I want to see there. As long as it keeps running and those people stay on the app, that will be my first choice.

I have real concerns, though, that it will survive as we know it much longer. I hope we can put that off as long as possible, to the point where either Bluesky or Threads are usable alternatives. Or maybe the TT gets fed up and dumps it to someone else and they do their best to repair all the damage he’s done.

I’ve read several pieces about the state of the social media world over the past week. This was, by far, my favorite.

Mark F***king Zuckerberg Is Not Your Friend

I generally agree with her high-level point: the normalization of Mark Zuckerberg needs to end. Make him earn goodwill, don’t just give it to him because we’re all sick of TT. He’s a bad fucking dude. Just because he keeps his mouth shut compared to Elon doesn’t mean he’s some champion for all that is right and just.

More than her point, I greatly admire her ability to just GO OFF for so freaking long. I can rant for a paragraph or two. Homegirl does it for pages and pages. Respect.

Musk let them run wild on Twitter. But Zuckerberg made them. He nurtured them. He gave them a place to safely yes, and each other into January 6th and whatever comes next. He’s resisted doing anything but helping them to greater heights of lunacy over and over again. What Musk wants to make of this world is our new best friend Zuck’s greatest hits album.