People Want Threads to Be Old Twitter. Threads Would Prefer Not To. (gizmodo.com)
from psychothumbs@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 20:40
https://lemmy.world/post/6716456

#technology

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autotldr@lemmings.world on 12 Oct 2023 20:45 next collapse

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The detritus at X quickly bubbled over to the rest of the internet — some of it promoted by Elon Musk himself — to the point that the European Union threatened to ban the app over the Israel-Hamas misinformation problem.

Last month, for example, the Washington Post reported that Threads had blocked users from searching for a variety of terms related to the news, including “Covid.”

The company made a number of desperate changes across its family of apps over the last year or so to try and make users have a more pleasant experience online, tamping down news among them.

Since then, Twitter never approached Facebook or Instagram’s numbers, but in terms of cultural relevance, it’s always been one of Zuck’s only real social media competitors

Today, the prevailing model comes from TikTok, a platform that looks more like TV, with content made by people you’re only connected to as a fan or consumer.

Bluesky and Mastodon, the hippest Twitter replacements, are happy to embrace news, but they’re comparatively tiny platforms, and the fun comes from the network effects of a large user base.


The original article contains 823 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

shunir@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:01 collapse

Most useful bot ever.

cheese_greater@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 22:13 collapse

MUBE!

Darksouls1234@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 20:52 next collapse

What will they thread next to mastodon mastodon is the old Twitter, people were brainwashed by these two stinkers

MossyFeathers@pawb.social on 12 Oct 2023 20:53 next collapse

Bluesky is literally just old Twitter but better. Why do people insist on hurting themselves with Threads?

Edit: for those more technically inclined, it looks like there are now instructions on how to host your own Bluesky instance. It sounds like you may need a developer account before you can federate with the official instance though.

psychothumbs@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:13 next collapse

Yeah the only problem with bluesky is that it still has such strict limits on who can join, and even who can see the content. Can’t exactly make it your online home for announcements and such if most people can’t see them there even if they wanted to.

ugjka@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:23 next collapse

bsky-social-4stbe-z2k4b (comment if you grabbed this, so that others don’t try)

tja@sh.itjust.works on 12 Oct 2023 21:31 next collapse

I tried, but it seems it’s already gone

ripcord@kbin.social on 12 Oct 2023 22:35 collapse

And no one commented that they did. Nice.

Then_I_said@lemmy.sdf.org on 12 Oct 2023 21:31 next collapse

Thanks!

cm0002@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:38 next collapse

How many do you have? I’ve been waiting on the wait-list for like months now lmao

ugjka@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:43 collapse

I get one every 2 weeks, usually give them to strangers like in this case

MossyFeathers@pawb.social on 12 Oct 2023 23:14 next collapse

Fyi, don’t post codes like that in public. Bots grab them. No site is safe.

rolofox@lemmy.zip on 13 Oct 2023 01:06 collapse

Anyone still need one? I have 2

Edit: gone

tja@sh.itjust.works on 13 Oct 2023 06:08 next collapse

I am interested in one, if you still have one

rolofox@lemmy.zip on 13 Oct 2023 14:42 collapse

Sent you the code

Sprite@lemmy.ml on 13 Oct 2023 07:16 collapse

Do you still have the other one? I’ve been waiting months. :c

rolofox@lemmy.zip on 13 Oct 2023 14:43 collapse

Sent you the code

SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca on 12 Oct 2023 23:28 collapse

You know what makes the Nobel Prize so valuable? Not everyone gets one.

Blue sky is following the early Facebook playbook of artificial exclusivity. When the feeling of FOMO is widespread enough, they’ll gradually open the door wider.

Edit: I don’t mean to imply that blue sky is good like the Nobel prize is good. I just mean they’re using artificial scarcity to drum up demand.

virtualbriefcase@lemm.ee on 13 Oct 2023 00:26 collapse

I’m not quite sure social media accounts and the Nobel Prize make a good comparison. I get what you’re saying about the exclusivity idea, but in my mind “exclusive” social media can’t really be that much of a draw if there’s a million alternatives and it doesn’t bring anything new to the table (it’s not decentralized or federated if you need approval from a central authority).

SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca on 13 Oct 2023 00:34 collapse

It’s a club with people lining up outside then.

NaibofTabr@infosec.pub on 13 Oct 2023 00:36 collapse

“I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member”

AnarchoDakosaurus@toast.ooo on 13 Oct 2023 03:25 collapse

Now those are some wise fuckin words.

Womble@lemmy.world on 13 Oct 2023 08:23 collapse

Marx was full of wisdom

NaibofTabr@infosec.pub on 14 Oct 2023 03:57 collapse

<img alt="" src="https://www.northernsun.com/images/image16x9/3774.jpg">

shunir@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:14 next collapse

Bluesky might be better Twitter, but if people doesn’t hear about it, or does not want to try it out, they’ll stay on Twitter. Or if they can’t stand Musk they go to Threads. Simply because those platforms are the biggest there.

sab@kbin.social on 12 Oct 2023 21:47 collapse

Bluesky is spreading like wildfire in academia at least.

And much like wildfire, it's going to be a fucking disaster. I don't understand why people who are paid to be critical thinkers would jump to another platform owned by a centralised actor. It'll be the same shit all over again.

BURN@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 23:19 collapse

Because centralization is safe and the majority of users really don’t care about using services owned by major corps.

The fediverse is extremely uninviting if you’re a non-technical user. Not impossible, but it’s not a great experience. Centralized social media removes a lot of choices users need to make, which counterintuitively is what tends to make a better UX for the average user. It comes at the expense of the power user, but the power users aren’t the target audience most of the time.

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 13 Oct 2023 01:16 next collapse

Yeah, it’s an unfortunate reality that the ecosystem just isn’t very mature yet. Like technically it’s got all the power to run a social media site, but all the onboarding processes and little conveniences that would make it a pleasant move aren’t there.

One thing activitypub is missing right now is a built-in way to discover the network, discover instances and understand the shape of the network in terms of federation status. Right now there are outside tools you can discover and peer in from the outside, but they’re clunky, break intermittently, and they’re not easy to find.

Activitypub only does one half of its job right now: making posts happen. Because it is built on federation it needs to also intrinsically allow users to discover and learn about that process of federation. That’s not something any other social media platform has ever had to do, so it’s understandable that it was missed, but I think it’s key to both differentiating itself from those other networks and becoming more legible.

With centralisation, the posts, networks, onboarding, discovery, all of it is handled by one actor, so they can do all of that however they want.

sab@kbin.social on 13 Oct 2023 02:27 collapse

I honestly think a lot is solved with the new onboarding experience in Mastodon, even though it's controversial in the fediverse.

If the twitter exodus to Mastodon happened today I suspect the main problem, except the servers having to deal with millions of people trying to sign up all at once, would be the lack of quote posts. Which is at least on the roadmap.

justaveg@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:22 next collapse

You know what would be hilarious? Eventually blue sky buys the leftovers of twitter and renames itself twitter. Although by that time it may not be a prudent move. So maybe not.

MossyFeathers@pawb.social on 12 Oct 2023 21:25 next collapse

I’ve been under the impression that part of the reason for bluesky’s invite system is to help keep out bad actors. It makes it easier to ban someone and keep them from coming back. Buying Twitter would just open the floodgates.

Excrubulent@slrpnk.net on 13 Oct 2023 01:30 collapse

Just buy twitter the brand but keep none of the user lists or tech stack, just the name. Honestly though I’ve been sick of twitter for years at this point and I would rather it be reduced to a footnote in history, an emblem of the bad times when a handful of billionaire assholes controlled all of our information ecosystems.

ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:36 collapse

Even funnier would be to buy x.com in the liquidation sale.

MossyFeathers@pawb.social on 13 Oct 2023 01:41 collapse

I can see it now

“The site formerly known as ‘X formerly known as Twitter’”

[deleted] on 14 Oct 2023 20:22 collapse

.

[deleted] on 12 Oct 2023 23:10 next collapse

.

BURN@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 23:17 next collapse

Because the majority of people don’t even know what bluesky is, and those who do can’t get an invite

MossyFeathers@pawb.social on 12 Oct 2023 23:36 collapse

They’re a lot more common than you think; you get an invite to give out every 10 days. It’s just that you gotta ask around for them. If you’re looking for an invite, try asking a furry. I think most of the furry community who wants to be on Bluesky is already there at this point, so there are probably a number of furries who have tons of unused invites.

sucricdrawkcab@lemmy.world on 13 Oct 2023 00:33 collapse

This explains why I was seeing so many Furries at first. Dialed in the Feeds and don’t see them anymore but I was confused at first

MossyFeathers@pawb.social on 13 Oct 2023 00:52 collapse

Yup. The furry community is very tight-knit. If you pick any two humans at random, there will be six degrees of separation between them on average. I’d be willing to bet there’s a maximum of six degrees of separation between furries, with the average probably being 2~3 degrees. If you pick people with related interests, the maximum probably drops to 3~4 degrees, with the average being around 1~2. The result is that Bluesky spread like wildfire through the community.

sucricdrawkcab@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 23:38 next collapse

I think the invite system slows people joining vs Threads easy sign up. I agree that it is straight up old Twitter and enjoying myself on it. I just started getting invites , they go fast but definitely give them out. Seems like every time I see a post about it I don’t have a code to give out. Definitely need to just keep one on deck for the Lemmy comment section.

atetulo@lemm.ee on 13 Oct 2023 00:17 next collapse

I’ll never understand why people are so excited for something that is proprietary and invite-only…

Oh yeah, they’re idiots. I suspect bluesky is paying for a lot of viral marketing.

MossyFeathers@pawb.social on 13 Oct 2023 00:47 collapse

Nah, it’s because it’s less of a headache than Mastodon (everyone I’ve talked to likes the idea, but hates the implementation because they find it hard to navigate) and it’s not a mess like Threads or Twitter. What people want is 2015 Twitter because they’re not nerds. They want it to just work.

As for the invite-only thing, I found it odd at first, but I kinda understand why people like it now. It makes it harder for assholes to join and if they do manage to get an invite, they’ll have to get another one after their account gets banned for bigotry or being a shithead.

atetulo@lemm.ee on 13 Oct 2023 01:07 next collapse

The problem is its centralized nature. As a business, it’s going to do what businesses do and get people hooked, then slowly enshittify their products/services until a competitor takes over.

be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social on 13 Oct 2023 08:30 next collapse

More folks need to learn about firefish. It federates with Mastodon and has a much nicer UX and UI.

There are many instances, but the main one is firefish.social

ilinamorato@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 21:01 collapse

I’ve also heard good things about Calckey.

be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social on 14 Oct 2023 21:48 collapse

Firefish is what Calckey became when rebranded recently. 😁

https://wedistribute.org/2023/07/calckey-is-now-firefish/

ilinamorato@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 21:53 collapse

Aha! That makes sense then.

wagoner@infosec.pub on 13 Oct 2023 11:37 collapse

It’s hard because people are confused about multiple instances. Bluesky is a solo instance, to date, so they avoid that issue. But it will come.

joseangel@lemmy.world on 13 Oct 2023 03:41 collapse

Maybe BECAUSE I HAVEN’T RECEIVED THE DAMN CODE!

sheogorath@lemmy.world on 13 Oct 2023 06:36 collapse

Although with their proprietary solution, there’s a significant chance that Bluesky is going to be Twitter 2.0 if it ever gains traction. I’m rooting for fediverse to take off because my social media activity has shrunk to a couple of group chats with close friends and family plus occasional comments on Mastodon and Lemmy.

DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe on 13 Oct 2023 06:59 next collapse

Idk bro, sounds kind of emotionally healthy.

be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social on 14 Oct 2023 22:12 collapse

Although with their proprietary solution, there’s a significant chance that Bluesky is going to be Twitter 2.0 if it ever gains traction.

Bluesky.social is open source (MIT) and supports federation, though I don't know to what degree it compares to federation as implemented across what we normally think of as the fediverse. I know it's a different protocol, but not more than that.

https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-5-2023-federation-architecture

https://github.com/bluesky-social

I'd love the fediverse as we know it to become dominant, but I think it's going to be a slow burn if it happens at all.

wantd2B1ofthestrokes@discuss.tchncs.de on 12 Oct 2023 21:17 next collapse

People leaving twitter for instawords deserve to be let down

justaveg@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 21:20 next collapse

Lol, good luck at trying to get meta to listen to what users really want.

CarlsIII@kbin.social on 12 Oct 2023 21:31 next collapse

As far as I’m concerned it’s still just Facebook

SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de on 12 Oct 2023 21:33 next collapse

wait, people still use threads?

ripcord@kbin.social on 12 Oct 2023 22:33 collapse

Quite a few apparently.

Not great, but still better than TwitX.

heygooberman@lemmy.today on 12 Oct 2023 21:34 next collapse

Be careful what you wish for, folks!

smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de on 12 Oct 2023 21:43 next collapse

They want a social network designed in a way that single company have all control that would be abused after gaining enough users and advertisers?

sab@kbin.social on 12 Oct 2023 21:53 collapse

Trust me, we'll do the exact same thing again, having learned nothing and with the same exact person on top. Literally the same exact thing that enabled all the fascists some months ago.

It's going to be great this time around!!

dodeca@lemmy.world on 12 Oct 2023 23:40 next collapse

Threads? I completely forgot about Threads because this is the first time I’ve seen news about it since the week it launched. And I doom scroll Lemmy Everything every night.

ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world on 13 Oct 2023 04:59 next collapse

I’ve never heard of the expression “doom scroll”! It’s awesome! With your permission, I’ll start using it.

I also doom scroll Lemmy every night (which is bad, since I should sleep, but good because I stopped going to Reddit)

HidingCat@kbin.social on 13 Oct 2023 05:33 collapse

Where were you doing COVID? That was when the phrase really was at its peak, as everyone was doing that to keep up with the news.

ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world on 13 Oct 2023 09:59 collapse

I was lucky enough to be working regularly during covid, but I didn’t say I’ve never doom scrolled!

I just never heard the expression on Reddit (which is where I was at the time when wasting… I mean, investing my free time) :)

MonkderZweite@feddit.ch on 13 Oct 2023 19:58 next collapse

Btw, is there a Lemmy app where you can disable infinite scrolling / set to 50 items per page or so?

ilinamorato@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 20:45 collapse

It keeps getting bumps in adoption every time Musk does something stupid. So, weekly or so.

Honestly it’s kind of a chill service. If it wasn’t controlled by Meta, I’d be more active there. As it is, Mastodon is my jam.

Pxtl@lemmy.ca on 13 Oct 2023 04:12 next collapse

The problem is that the painfully earnest people went to Mastodon, the funny people went to BlueSky, the celebs went to Threads, and the mid-tier YouTubers and Streamers and Podcasters who have to be Internet Famous every damned day or they don’t get to eat stayed on Twitter.

Personally I’m pulling for Mastodon because I’m a painfully earnest person.

Bebo@literature.cafe on 13 Oct 2023 12:43 next collapse

That explains why I like Mastodon! Painfully earnest individual here.

MargotRobbie@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 20:37 collapse

If there was only some way for people on different microblog websites to talk to each other…

Maybe some kind of open, decentralized protocol?

hansl@lemmy.world on 14 Oct 2023 22:34 collapse

If only. Some sort of text with added extra, like hypertext, and it could be used as a transport protocol. One can dream.

ChrisLicht@lemm.ee on 13 Oct 2023 16:53 collapse

Not to overly focus on aesthetics, but maybe Zuckerberg could take a few minutes away from his daily groping of paid-friends, and instead work with an acting coach to develop a look for photos that isn’t best described as Robot Rictus.

CuttingBoard@sopuli.xyz on 14 Oct 2023 21:59 collapse

One would assume he can afford eyebrows now.