Threads

Meta - the owners of Facebook - released "Threads" this morning - a mobile app very similar to Twitter, but perhaps crucially not run by a self-destructive narcissist egomaniac (although some will no doubt argue that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are as bad as each other). It's going to be interesting to see how things unfold over the days, weeks, and months ahead.

While writing this, I'm seeing an army of mansplainers marching across the Threads landscape, trying to tell people how they should be using it. I suppose that was entirely predictable - as was the proliferation of articles in old media about the new platform - trying to get attention on it's coat-tails. No doubt they will recycle the same old privacy FUD that everybody always does when Meta are involved.

It's really quite simple - if you don't want something shared on the internet, don't share it on the internet. It's not rocket science.

I think perhaps the most amusing part of the unfolding story - for me at least - has been Elon Musk's reaction to the arrival of Threads. He has essentially stated that Twitter is a far better platform to receive abuse from strangers. That's some properly twisted logic, right there.

I can't help feeling that Google got this right with their doomed "Google+" platform - only people were too stupid to realise it at the time. They insisted on real identities - real names - no pseudonyms. If you were going to slander, trash-talk, or pollute the community with toxic idiocy, you would be traceable and accountable. People didn't like that. I wonder why...

The "social internet" has always interested me - the whole "melting pot" aspect to it. Different people, different cultures, different values, and different personalities - all thrown under one roof together. For the most part it's wonderful - but you will always get a small minority that run counter to anything and everything that anybody else deems acceptable - sometimes purposely so. Attention is oxygen for some, and a source of monetary gain for others.

The days, weeks and months ahead will be interesting.

I'm @jonbeckett at Threads.