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Cont: Musk buys Twitter II

It's still early, but things I've noticed about threads:

The good:
- it basically looks like a clone of Twitter, just without all the dumb **** that Musk has added. It's wide open to the public and you have to assume that Facebook has the infrastructure to on board as many people as want to join, allowing it to be available as an alternative as Musk incrementally makes Twitter worse. (Unlike Bluesky, which is much talked about but seems to be in extended beta that is invite-only, probably because they simply do not have the infrastructure for a larger user base at this time)

The bad:

- There's no chronological feed of only people you follow. This is a huge misstep in my opinion and tons of people are whining about it. A chronological feed of only people you follow is the core of Twitter's popularity and even with all the bloat and algorithmic content that has been added to it over the years, it remains the heart of the social media site that attracts people. I don't want to see what the algorithm thinks I want to see, I want to see the people I chose to follow are posting.

- People also whining about how it really, really wants you to link an instagram account. Wasn't an issue for me because I didn't have an instagram account, but for people who do it's a bit hard to set up a stand alone account. People are understandably reluctant to be so overtly tied up in the Zuck extended universe where Facebook, instagram, and Threads are all linked in such a heavy handed way (even if that's obviously going to be the case at the very least behind the scenes). Semi anonymity is a big feature of Twitter that people like

- No direct messages or group chats yet. Presumably this is a feature coming soon.

- Apparently not available in the EU because of noncompliance to data privacy laws.

If they added a chronological, follower-only feed soon I think Twitter could really be in danger of a mass exodus, which is saying a lot because it's not like people are big fans of Zuck or the extended Facebook universe.
 
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TurkeysGhost said:
It's still early, but things I've noticed about threads:

The good:
- it basically looks like a clone of Twitter, just without all the dumb **** that Musk has added. It's wide open to the public and you have to assume that Facebook has the infrastructure to on board as many people as want to join, allowing it to be available as an alternative as Musk incrementally makes Twitter worse. (Unlike Bluesky, which is much talked about but seems to be in extended beta that is invite-only, probably because they simply do not have the infrastructure for a larger user base at this time)

The bad:

- There's no chronological feed of only people you follow. This is a huge misstep in my opinion and tons of people are whining about it. A chronological feed of only people you follow is the core of Twitter's popularity and even with all the bloat and algorithmic content that has been added to it over the years, it remains the heart of the social media site that attracts people. I don't want to see what the algorithm thinks I want to see, I want to see the people I chose to follow are posting.

- People also whining about how it really, really wants you to link an instagram account. Wasn't an issue for me because I didn't have an instagram account, but for people who do it's a bit hard to set up a stand alone account. People are understandably reluctant to be so overtly tied up in the Zuck extended universe where Facebook, instagram, and Threads are all linked in such a heavy handed way (even if that's obviously going to be the case at the very least behind the scenes). Semi anonymity is a big feature of Twitter that people like

- No direct messages or group chats yet. Presumably this is a feature coming soon.

- Apparently not available in the EU because of noncompliance to data privacy laws.

If they added a chronological, follower-only feed soon I think Twitter could really be in danger of a mass exodus, which is saying a lot because it's not like people are big fans of Zuck or the extended Facebook universe.
Click to expand...

The data privacy issues relate to more than GDPR, it also includes Zuckerberg's companies long standing direct theft of their customers' data and the allowing and encouragement of same by third parties. The EU are coming down very hard on Zuckerberg and will continue to do so for years to come.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
- There's no chronological feed of only people you follow. This is a huge misstep in my opinion and tons of people are whining about it. A chronological feed of only people you follow is the core of Twitter's popularity and even with all the bloat and algorithmic content that has been added to it over the years, it remains the heart of the social media site that attracts people. I don't want to see what the algorithm thinks I want to see, I want to see the people I chose to follow are posting.
Click to expand...
Yeah, a lot of people are complaining about that, but I'm not. It's basically the same idea as the Facebook News Feed, which a lot of people also complained about but which people got used to and no longer complain about.

TurkeysGhost said:
- People also whining about how it really, really wants you to link an instagram account. Wasn't an issue for me because I didn't have an instagram account, but for people who do it's a bit hard to set up a stand alone account. People are understandably reluctant to be so overtly tied up in the Zuck extended universe where Facebook, instagram, and Threads are all linked in such a heavy handed way (even if that's obviously going to be the case at the very least behind the scenes). Semi anonymity is a big feature of Twitter that people like
Click to expand...
Well, one of the reasons that they were able to get it working so quickly is that it's basically identical to Instagram, but for text rather than for pictures. And it also allowed them as I said to have basically the entire Instagram user base by default, so there was no long ramp up to popularity.

ZirconBlue said:
Other than cosmetic differences, I don't see it.
Click to expand...
Twitter was set up for short, text-based observations and interactions, while also providing a platform for sharing links. Instagram is specifically a photo sharing platform, though with the rise of TikTok it now also supports short videos. WhatsApp is for instant messaging between individuals and groups. All these are different functions for different markets.

Facebook is the elephant in the room, in that it does a whole pile of things, including group interactions for subjects of special interest, one-to-many dissemination of content to fans of people and products, event management, a marketplace for goods and services and other functions as well, many of which mimic the functions that other specialist products also provide (like sharing photos). That's why to me, Facebook is the most useful of the social media platforms. It's flexible and able to be applied to a lot of different kinds of situations.

Of course, over time, the different specialist platforms have attempted to shoehorn in functions that other platforms provide, particularly short videos because TikTok. This has resulted in a certain amount of overlap. But each platform has its different specific market.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
The data privacy issues relate to more than GDPR, it also includes Zuckerberg's companies long standing direct theft of their customers' data and the allowing and encouragement of same by third parties. The EU are coming down very hard on Zuckerberg and will continue to do so for years to come.
Click to expand...
Demonstrably, nobody cares.
 
arthwollipot said:
Yeah, a lot of people are complaining about that, but I'm not. It's basically the same idea as the Facebook News Feed, which a lot of people also complained about but which people got used to and no longer complain about.
Click to expand...

I certainly do. Every few months they hide the "most recent" feed somewhere new and I have to find it. As well, I have little control over how thorough the "most recent" feed is. It appears to pick and choose what friends' updates to show me according to my "level of engagement". Which is terrible because there are some groups I want to read often without responding. As well, if a friend has been away from Facebook for a while I want to know if they've returned, but I rarely do because there was no "engagement" so I have to open their page directly to find out.

For this reason I always give the interface the lowest rating possible whenever they send out surveys pretending to care. I find it incredibly frustrating, but I feel locked in because that is where most of the people I want to connect with frequent.

It's dilemma without an obvious resolution, that due to FB's existing command of large populations, they have no incentive to be responsive to the users. The mere presence of the other users trumps everything, like a mass mutual hostage situation. I think the only thing to break it will be if an alternative offers a "killer" app or feature that is almost universally desired.
 
Twitter threatens legal action over Threads app

I'm guessing it's just bluster but it also seems like a signal that Musk is concerned about this.

Musk is angry that some of the Twitter employees he fired have been subsequently hired by Meta, although Meta denies that any of them were involved in creating the Threads app.

Would that be illegal, even if true? It's not like Meta doesn't have its own knowledge about how to create a social media platform or that publicly known information isn't sufficient to make something very similar.
 
Facebook's News Feed algortithm certainly rewards active curation. I've spent a great deal of time making sure that I'm in exactly the information bubble that I want. :D
 
Puppycow said:
Twitter threatens legal action over Threads app

I'm guessing it's just bluster but it also seems like a signal that Musk is concerned about this.

Musk is angry that some of the Twitter employees he fired have been subsequently hired by Meta, although Meta denies that any of them were involved in creating the Threads app.

Would that be illegal, even if true? It's not like Meta doesn't have its own knowledge about how to create a social media platform or that publicly known information isn't sufficient to make something very similar.
Click to expand...

Likely bluster and/or a shot across the bows IMO.

Simply having similar functionality wouldn't be enough, Twitter would have to show theft of intellectual property.
 
Puppycow said:
Twitter threatens legal action over Threads app

I'm guessing it's just bluster but it also seems like a signal that Musk is concerned about this.

Musk is angry that some of the Twitter employees he fired have been subsequently hired by Meta, although Meta denies that any of them were involved in creating the Threads app.

Would that be illegal, even if true? It's not like Meta doesn't have its own knowledge about how to create a social media platform or that publicly known information isn't sufficient to make something very similar.
Click to expand...

At this point who is to even say what is legal or illegal in these kinds of situations?

I imagine a lot of people like Musk and Zuckerberg just play the game of doing what they want and outspending their rivals in court.
 
The Don said:
Likely bluster and/or a shot across the bows IMO.

Simply having similar functionality wouldn't be enough, Twitter would have to show theft of intellectual property.
Click to expand...
I've seen a claim that Meta specifically hired developers that had been fired from Twitter, for the purposes of creating Threads. Don't know how much credence to give that report, though.
 
arthwollipot said:
I've seen a claim that Meta specifically hired developers that had been fired from Twitter, for the purposes of creating Threads. Don't know how much credence to give that report, though.
Click to expand...

I saw a claim that Meta specifically *didn't* hire anyone from Twitter to work on Threads.
 
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