Threads vs. Twitter (the eX), One Year Later

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As someone who is very much into Linux and open source software, and therefore by extension, the fediverse (Mastodon, Wafrn, etc), you might think it's weird that I'd write up an article about how I feel Threads is doing versus Twitter. Thing is, I understand there are people out there who ... let's just say, need to be on corporate social media. It's the only thing they can envision themselves being part of. Like someone who always buys the expensive purified Smart™ water instead of just grabbing one of the Great Value brand bottles, because they somehow think it's healthier. Or more ... watererer.

Me, I keep my foot in corpo-media because I am a creator and there are needs that Mastodon can't always yet fill.

Maybe someday that'll change, and we can get a vast majority of the world on-board with user owned social media. I believe the building blocks are firmly in-place, and we're ready for them. But! Until then, there will be plenty of hold-outs who rely on mega-corporations for their ability to interact with strangers and share things.

Enter: Threads, in comparison to Twitter, one year later.

It's no secret that Threads is a major point of contention on Mastodon. Some people, who pride themselves on extreme black and white thinking, will even call you evil for using Threads. I think those people need some professional help, or, at the very least, to touch some damn grass. I don't believe in "guilt by association" and I think every single person has different, specific reasons for why they do things, or why they feel they need to do things. Such as, being on Threads, and not Mastodon. I can respect that some people just aren't ready for that, yet.

I mean, at least they're trying. At least people are abandoning Twitter. That was one of the goals when Mastodon launched ... to get people off of Twitter.

But, I've gone on about this before and have done so too much here and now. Let's talk about how I feel Threads is doing in comparison to Twitter.

Yes, people still use Twitter. I have mutuals over there who haven't even given any thought to switching to something else. Posting like nothing's happened. Like their timelines aren't filled with strangers intruding on their personal space with intentionally antagonistic garbage. But, again, people have their reasons ... I guess?

Threads launched to a lot of hype, and quickly exploded to 100 million users. If Mark Zuckerberg is anything to go by, and he's telling the truth (we assume), there are something like 175 million active users on Threads.

Post by @zuck

View on Threads

Listen, I don't trust anyone who makes billions of dollars a year. I don't think Zuck is being entirely truthful at all times. But, some part of me thinks he's at least somewhat better than Elon Musk, in some kind of light.

This is a far-cry from what Bluesky can boast, in fact, I don't even know how many people are on there, but I know a few months ago it was maybe 2 or 3 million people. I do know that when I go on Bluesky, it seems more like there's 5 people there.

On Twitter, the Musk recently boasted billions of active user seconds. And, I mean, it's just my own inkling feelings, but if you have to put user activity under a microscope down to user seconds, something tells me there's a bit of hidden truths in there.

𝕏 US usage reaches all-time high! 🚀

76B total user-seconds in the US, beating the previous record by 5%.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2024

And it's no secret that many of the replies on Twitter recently have been revealed to just be bots utilizing ChatGPT to look like regular people. That's alongside the usual content on Twitter, which is just zillions of people engagement baiting all day every day, which all adds up to a hollow, and mostly annoying social media experience.

But, is Threads any different?

Sort of?

The algorithm on Threads is much like Twitter's, except the volume is turned to eleven. Any slight interaction with a thread tells the AI behind the frontend that you want to see more of that thing, indiscriminately.

You interacted with a generative art post to tell someone how much you hate generative art? Guess what, NOW YOU'LL SEE MORE!

You interacted with a thread about World of Warcraft to say how much you like the game? You'll see tons more of that, too.

Threads is all about not touching the things you hate, and only interacting with things you enjoy. In that way, it can be good, but only if you have self-control

Which, admittedly, I have very little of.

But, Threads is also full of engagement bait and content theft.

The brains behind Threads have said that they're working on solutions to clamp down on this behavior, and at the very least, make muting these people easier. But that was at least a month ago, and it's still a growing issue on the platform.

There is also no shortage, like on Twitter, of people champing at the bit, waiting to sling some toxicity your way for not having exactly the same opinion on mundane things that they do. Which, unfortunately, is exactly like Twitter.

I'm reminded of a post I made about DC Comics that I had to mute the notifications on, because it got near 20,000 views, and tons and tons of nerds telling me I'm stupid and an idiot for liking Batman and the newest Flash film.

That isn't something that happens on Mastodon very often, and when it does, I just outright erase their existence from my entire server.

Twitter has its own AI, Threads ... sort of has its own AI, since it's linked to Instagram, and Meta has an AI. Neither of these things are objectively good, because AI sucks about 98% of the time. But I won't say I haven't tried the text based Meta AI, just to see how it responds. And, I have to say, most of the things I've typed into an AI, such as meaningless questions a Google search could answer ... were better off just being a Google search.

Google's shoddy and likely future graveyard-fodder AI is another story entirely.

Twitter has hashtags, and Threads has the ability to tag a single word or phrase in order to increase the reach of a post. This is where I have to give both Twitter and Mastodon a point, because I really do prefer the old school way of just using hashtags to tag subjects for people who are searching certain things. Meta's way of avoiding hashtags on Threads is weird, and I'm not sure if it even works well, and I'm also not sure why they're avoiding hashtags. Especially because, with full fediverse integration, there will be hashtags coming from Mastodon.

Future Threads updates also include an incoming content warning feature, which I believe is part of an effort to conform more with Mastodon standards. Which is actually fine, that's a good feature. This is also something Twitter sort of has? But it's mostly only for porn. Twitter has porn. Meta is more conservative about porn-posting, and I guess I can understand it, but there is value in not being so prude-ish. I mean, we are all human, after-all.

Meta's more prude approach to "not safe for work" content has, I believe, at least something to do with minors who populate social media, and not subjecting them to adult content. But, I also feel like children should get the hell off of social media forever until they're adults.

No, I won't argue that point. Kids don't belong on social media. Go outside and ride a bike, motherfrikkers.

But, at the end of the day, and one year later after having launched, is Threads really any better than Twitter? At least, if you're one of those people who are afraid of, or don't want to use Mastodon?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's fine.

As long as you take control of your own behavior and content, Threads can be a decently pleasant place to fulfill your posting needs. It's not really a great source for as-it-happens news, but I believe Meta is specifically avoiding being a hot-spot for political content and news media, because they don't want to end up in a situation where they've accidentally influenced global politics and are in the hot-seat in front of the supreme court.

We all know how Zuck handled that last time.

Twitter, despite still having at least some active users who aren't bots or people who exhibit NPC behavior posting nothing but bait all day, is a dying platform. Dying a slow death of disease and misfortune as its less-than-business-savvy owner shoves it into the ground like a horse that's been dead for five years.

If you refuse to join Mastodon, or are, for whatever reason, afraid of tinkering with open source software, just join Threads, alright? That way, in the future, once full fediverse integration happens, I can follow you, and we can have conversations across our chosen networks, and we can all just forget X ever happened.

Deal?