Better Threads than dead?

Musk vs Zuck. No idea what that is supposed to be on Elon’s chest. Source: Midjourney.

By the time you read this, more than 100 million people will have flocked to Threads, the new Twitter replacement created by Meta (aka Facebook).

I am one of them [1]. And I have to say, the first 48 hours have been a lot of fun. It feels like a cross between the first day of school and a college reunion. People are partying like it's 2009. There's a feeling of tremendous relief at being out from under the yoke of Elon Musk's Twitter, which has felt increasingly oppressive over the last few months.

The best part? Elon is clearly soiling his BVDs over it. Twitter has already threatened to sue Meta over "misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets." Funny how Space Karen didn't seem to care about all the other Twitter alternatives that have emerged over the last year.

Why Twitter?

A number of people who read this blog have asked me why I use Twitter. (And by use, I really mean abuse.) They just don’t get it. It seems pointless.

I understand their point of view. It’s kind of hard to explain to people who don't operate in the geek demimonde. But please allow me to try.

Imagine you decide to attend a party you heard about from a friend. You enter this enormous room filled with people, most of them total strangers. You start having conversations with them and/or eavesdropping on their conversations with others. Some of them are, frankly, dull as dishwater. (There’s a lot of talking about what they just ate for lunch, for example.) But some of them are fascinating. Many of these people are smart and/or funny, and a handful of them are also good looking. A few are clearly experts in their field or possess arcane knowledge on different topics. There are a lot of journalists in the room, as well as academics, lawyers, comedians, professional athletes, and so on. It’s a lively group.

You dip in and out of this group whenever you feel like it, most often when you’re bored. You can spend as much time there as you want, and there’s no entry fee or other barriers. You can engage with whomever you want, and a lot of the time, they’ll engage back. There’s an illusion of proximity to celebrity that is a little intoxicating.

Just then the door swings open, and a big group of bros saunter into the room yelling “PAR-TAAAAYYY!” [1] They start bumping into people and spilling beer and picking fights. Their opinions are ill informed and obnoxious. Some of them tell outright lies. One of them takes a dump in the punch bowl.

The ringleader of the group grabs a megaphone and starting shouting inane shit designed to make people angry at each other. Some of the original party goers start to shuffle out the back, but most people stay, hoping these obnoxious people will eventually leave. After a long time, the management decides it’s had enough and starts kicking out the worst of them, starting with the ringleader. There's a lot of whining about this, but eventually things calm down. Everyone relaxes.

Then someone in a janitor’s coveralls hangs a sign on the wall: Under New Management. The new owner of the party space immediately invites all the obnoxious people back in. He creates a new VIP lounge for them and starts charging an entry fee. He limits who you can talk to, kicks some of your friends out for no apparent reason, and turns the lights off periodically because he hasn’t paid the bill.

The original people who started the party are angry and frustrated. They want to continue their fun and stimulating conversations, but they can’t hear each other over all the shouting from the drunks in the VIP lounge. They’re desperate for a new party to go to, but only if they can bring all their friends along.

When they try the party in the next room it’s filled with nerds talking about they just built a Linux server using parts from their old Radio Shack TRS-80. The next three or four rooms are mostly empty. The last room looks nice, but there’s a bouncer at the door demanding to see their invitations.

The big party is Twitter. The others are Mastodon, Post, Hive, Spill, BlueSky, etc.

That’s why Threads has such an immediate appeal: It reminds everyone of what Twitter used to be, before all the assholes ruined it.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

Threads solves the biggest problem to creating a “new, improved” Twitter: You can easily bring (some of) your friends along with you. Right now it’s limited to your Instagram posse. Don’t know about you, but I have roughly 10K Twitter followers and fewer than 500 ‘Insta-friends,” so it’s far from a complete solution. On the other hand, I couldn’t pick 98 percent of my Twitter followers out of a police lineup, so it’s not a tremendous loss. Half are probably bots anyway.

But if Threads is going to the new Twitter, it needs to solve the old Twitter’s problems: Spam, offensive/illegal content, bot armies, and people who hide behind fake accounts so they can act like dickheads with minimal consequences.

I’m not sure Mark Zuckerberg has the ability to do that, let alone the will. I mean, look at the tens of millions of fake and impersonator accounts currently on Facebook and Instagram. Virtually every day I get a new Insta DM from someone named PZrcmjfbdu42 or jenn.iferfraser398zqw [3] offering to teach me about crypto trading or asking to be my special friend.

Right now Threads/Instagram is offering a $15 monthly subscription where they will verify your identity and offer live support, stickers, and "extra security," whatever the hell that means.

Memo to Mark (and Elon): Identity verification should be free, or at least available for a nominal one-time charge. It will make your services much more palatable and usable for everyone. Honestly, is this really that difficult a concept?

Invite the right ones in

Unfortunately, I think the Threads honeymoon is just about over, seemingly moments after it began.

Within 24 hours of creating my account, I'd already gotten into a political argument. And the assholes have now arrived in force. LibsofTikTok’s Chaya Raichik, Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobiec, and I'm sure many more have all migrated over from Instagram. There are a nearly infinite number of places on the Internet these people can go to be as racist, transphobic, fascist loving, and science denying as they like. But they want to go where they're not wanted, and then claim it as a victory. It's what they live for.

Intercourse those people.

I hope Threads survives and that it implements some basic-but-necessary changes, like free ID verification and the ability to filter out accounts you never ever want to see. Right now it's just a fire hose.

Because everyone should have the right to decide who gets to come to their party.

Have you used Threads? If so, what do you think? Post your thoughts below, and feel free to share this post in any venue you desire.

[1] Subscriber no. 3,779,687 to be exact.

[2] Imagine if Kid Rock and Ted Nugent had a love child.

[3] Actual fake Insta addresses in my DMs right now.