Hot Topix: Microblogging - Holding on by a Thread

It has now been a little over six months since Meta rolled out "Threads" - Their supposed X (Formerly known as Twitter) killer.  Like Twitter, Threads is available as both an app and a desktop client, and it offers users the ability to post and share short text posts, images, and videos, as well as interact with other users' posts through replies, "reposts," and likes. Current estimates put total Threads users at around 160 Million accounts.

The path that Threads is following is littered with has-beens, wannabes and hand-wringing venture capitalists - Gab, Truth Social, Parler, GETTR, Bluesky... And that's just the ones we can think of.

Is Threads going to leave X hanging on by a thread? Does microblogging have a future? Tune in to this episode of The Decentralists to find out.

Transcript

00:01.28
Henry
Hey, everyone it's Henry Mike and Jeff of the decentraalists and welcome to our latest hot topics. It's called micro blogging holding on by a thread. So what's that all about well it's been. Just a bit over six months since meta rolled out threads and that was supposed to be their Twitter killer um, their version of Twitter or I guess x now I guess they want to x x but like Twitter threads is available as both an app and a desktop client and it offers users the ability to post. And share short texts and it offers users the ability to share short text posts images and videos and of course interact with other users' posts through replies and and reposts and likes currently. The estimate is maybe 160000000 users of threads. But I don't know much about it. But certainly Jeffrey has been looking at it closely I know you've been playing with it for the last few months get us going. What do you think about.

01:16.70
Geoff
Thanks Henry and good day. Everyone good day. Mike um, what do I think about it that's that's a great question. Um I think that at its heart threads is a kindler simpler Twitter and I'm going to kick off. I don't like every time you say x formula known as Twitter or stumble over x or say x or so we'll just we'll just preface this by saying I'm going to talk about Twitter and those people listening that are a big fan of the new brand you can just you can just shift that in your mind.

01:46.96
Mike
Exactly That's a great idea.

01:48.62
Henry
Um, good idea. It's Twitter.

01:49.62
Geoff
But but we'll just we'll just we'll just talk about Twitter because why you would why you would take 1 of the most recognizable brands in the world and trash it well, that's the subject for another podcast and um, but but but I'm going I'm going to just use the word the word Twitter

01:57.74
Mike
Well, you clearly have more money than brains clearly have more money than brains.

01:59.88
Henry
Um, that's for a marketing team.

02:06.33
Geoff
So I would say I would describe it as a lighter friendlier Twitter if you were to log if you are a Twitter user and you were to log into threads. You would see an interface that is familiar to you. You would see a or you do see. A threaded list of of not tweets but posts thread posts that that scroll up like you are you know like you would expect to see you can click reply and interact with them. Um, the the interface itself is probably less busy.

02:36.74
Henry
Um, and.

02:44.78
Geoff
Then then the Twitter interface is right now I'm sure part of that is due to the fact Elon let go all his ui and ux people so it's turning into a bit of a dog's breakfast um whereas threads is is quite a bit cleaner. Um, so that would be kind of your first. Your first sense of it. The second thing you would. Become aware of if you spent a few hours in there engaging and responding responding is threads in 2024 first time I've said that in a podcast I think is friendlier.

03:19.56
Henry
Yep.

03:22.10
Geoff
Than Twitter and 2024 it's a more pleasant experience when you engage with people. They don't immediately start attacking you and using profanity and you know hurdling Insult'll set you um, people don't pile on like they do on Twitter.

03:32.52
Henry
Oh.

03:40.17
Geoff
And if somebody does say something negative. He is sort of and it's almost always a he He is piled on with positivity. So.

03:47.20
Henry
But why do you think that is I mean and is it inevitable to go down the the the the the mean rude path.

03:57.20
Geoff
Um, inevitable. That's that's an interesting question I would say I would say so why is it that way. Well it is made up right now primarily of people who have fled Twitter why have people like me fled Twitter.

04:12.16
Henry
Um, ah.

04:14.19
Geoff
Because it's become a toxic hostile place you know, owned by a guy who is just stirring the pot of of trouble. So those people that have fled who still want you know a place to share memes and chat with others and talk about the Barbie movie have gone to threads.

04:19.92
Henry
Yeah, yeah, no kidding.

04:33.27
Geoff
And and so you know it's kind of like and all the all the bad people have been left behind. Um, so so I think that's part of that's one of the reasons that it's that it's nicer The other reason is it it? Um, it. The way you get onto threads and this is both a plus and minus we can talk about is you have to have an Instagram account so threads is by its nature tied to Instagram. So if you have an Instagram account you know I know Mike has one. He's probably seen an invitation to click and join threads.

05:00.91
Mike
Right.

05:10.70
Mike
Yes I have I.

05:12.37
Geoff
And it just you know it just it just takes you there so in previous podcasts we've talked about like this hierarchy of toxicity where where sort of Tiktok is at the top as being least toxic and Facebook is you know closer towards Twitter. Instagram is somewhere in the middle right? So so if if you say that you know if you say that Instagram probably has around 2000000000 users and and you get 10 % of them over in threads. Um I don't want to get.

05:37.80
Henry
Wow.

05:45.33
Geoff
As simple as saying you're kind of skimming the cream off the top. But you're already starting with a pool of users who aren't perhaps quite as evil as people that are just you know Cat Turd who's starting up an account on on Twitter um, and then and then the other thing you notice on threads having.

05:58.44
Mike
Right.

06:05.11
Geoff
Having spent a bit of time. There is again if you're toxic on Twitter you wind up with you know, other people will come along and support you your toxicity right? So other people will pyle on you call me a lipard somebody else. Ah call me a lippt tart somebody else. Will'll say sub. But.

06:17.51
Henry
Um, ah.

06:24.45
Geoff
Whereas on threads a person will wade in there and and say something mean and then and then they don't get propped up by anybody so that is kind of the other reason that it's um, that it's nice. Um, and and the other important consideration and and again we can. We can talk about this I mean it's owned by Meta you know Meta is far from any kind of saint but Meta does have particularly for English language does have a trust and safety Team Twitter has dismantled and discarded their trust and safety team that.

06:47.24
Henry
Right.

06:55.90
Henry
Um, yeah.

06:59.55
Geoff
You know the head of the trust and safety team yo l roth was accused of being a pedophile by Musk and doxed and his life as a hell right? whereas um, meta instagram threads have a trust and safety team that's ensuring that that toxic stuff doesn't.

07:05.97
Henry
Well.

07:18.59
Geoff
Doesn't get to be prominent and last month they announced that as we're leading up to the us election this year. They are implementing proof is in the pudding but they're going to be implementing a robust fact checking environment where um posts that are. Are lies and I I hate this word falsehoods. It's some made up where we made up weasly where a lie is a lie right posts that are lies are going to be fact, checked and and you'll be told this is a lie which I think is pretty critical as we're you know as we're coming up to this period of all these lies.

07:42.70
Mike
So falsehoods.

07:42.86
Henry
Um, yes.

07:55.34
Henry
Well Jeff I never thought we'd be talking about meta as a less evil choice.

07:58.29
Geoff
And election.

08:02.45
Mike
No kidding.

08:04.26
Geoff
So yes, absolutely, it's um, it's It's peculiar to say that it's peculiar to think that way to say the least Um, which is maybe a good segue into into talking about what makes me uneasy about threats. Um.

08:19.77
Henry
Um, yeah.

08:21.52
Geoff
So the first thing I will say is we just talked about it. It is it is owned by Meta Now Meta two years ago, you may remember Francis Howgan was the Facebook whistleblower who talked about how meta specifically with reference to their.

08:31.23
Henry
Um, yep.

08:40.70
Geoff
Instagram and Facebook properties consistently put profit ahead of you know what we consider the moral or right thing to do where yeah you know where it particularly as relates to teen girls and what causes mental health issues with teen girls.

08:55.83
Henry
Who.

08:58.23
Geoff
What causes election disinformation particularly in other parts of the world where Facebook is the internet so you know places like Sri Lanka India um former burma so you know so so when you say. I like this new platform you have to keep in mind who you're who you're getting in bed with the other consideration is there are no ads on threads yet. So of course that is a very positive experience. You can scroll and scroll and interact and you're you're not seeing ads for.

09:22.12
Henry
Um, yeah.

09:36.39
Geoff
You know for trucks and granola and all this kind of stuff but as I've said on on many on many podcasts in the path past part of me if if it's not if it's not being supported by ads what is paying to keep the lights on.

09:52.83
Mike
Correct.

09:54.84
Henry
Um, yeah.

09:54.88
Geoff
Is it your personal data is it now I think I think that Mark Zuckerberg could make the argument that that his primary objective here is to just get market dominance. So if you start up if you just start up a little airline.

10:08.63
Henry
Um, right.

10:13.26
Geoff
And you're offering flights from Vancouver to Calgary for $99 while West Jet and air canada sorry international listeners these are canadian references West Jetna Canada come along and offer flights for $89 at a loss to drive you out of business and they can sustain it based. They raise the farers on every other flight.

10:25.74
Henry
Um, they can sustain it.

10:33.80
Geoff
For $5 and they've paid for that so you can you can see that that this may be Zuckerberg's objective maybe to just kind of kill Twitter get it critical mass get it hugely popular and then they can start putting ads in the feed. Once they say.

10:35.31
Henry
Um.

10:45.10
Henry
Um, yeah.

10:51.86
Geoff
You know, hey look you've you've left Twitter but here's a much nicer place where you can advertise with with um with much nicer people and there are fewer. There aren't many. Ah um.

10:55.78
Henry
Um, I'm sure they will.

11:07.18
Geoff
There aren't many. It's even past Rivalry The Rivalry between Musk and Zuckerberg is kind of legendary right? Um, and it's almost past rivalry to outright hostility between the 2 of them I mean a few months ago there was talk of them getting together for a cage fight. You may you know? Yeah well.

11:19.54
Mike
And Cagee fighting I'd love to see that I might actually buy tickets.

11:21.36
Henry
Um, that's that's.

11:27.40
Geoff
Could it could you know if they gave the money to charity for those tickets then then that would be good but of course that would never happen. So I um you know so so don't put it past Zuckerberg to just say well I'm doing this just because I want to screw over Elon Musk because he's my art of nemesis.

11:33.73
Henry
Um, ah.

11:42.34
Henry
Who who.

11:45.96
Geoff
And you know Elon Musk presents himself as Tony Stark and iron men and I don't like that and so.

11:50.19
Henry
Um, and he just dropped forty Four billion was it to buy. Ah.

11:56.59
Geoff
Yeah, so um, so yeah, so it's not. It's not all you know, not all roses and unicorns. But but it is certainly it is certainly a nicer place and every week you see more and more high prominent.

11:57.59
Mike
Yep.

12:13.20
Geoff
People of high prominence moving over there Journalists celebrities people with large followings are are appearing over there which certainly isn't the case with truth social Gab Parlor and these other other platforms.

12:29.73
Henry
Yeah, well okay to both of you and you've spoken about this before Jeffrey I know that that that there is a history of littered has-bes as far as social media or communication apps. Ah you had mentioned like Gab a true social parlor. Ah, getter blue sky and it it goes on and on and on I mean do you think that this is ah do you think threads could be a true threat to Twitter Michael.

13:01.40
Mike
You? Um, well okay, so you know I think that I think that that that question you know Henry is is kind of like a it's all subjective because you know to the to the um. You know, kind of to the example that that Jeff just used about the new airline flying between Vancouver and cal right? Gab Parlor truth social all of this type of stuff. We're not air canada or West Jet or united or any of these guys this is like startup. Okay. So you open up you open up your so your airline you've got up 1 plane you fly between Vancouver Calgary, you're charging ninety nine bucks and the big guys put you out of business. So the reason why those folks haven't haven't kind of been successful is just because it's it's it's it's almost insurmountable. You know you.

13:37.63
Henry
Ah.

13:56.66
Mike
You need to get to 100000000 users how do you do that from 0 whereas when you're skimming the cream off the top of your 2000000000 instagram users that's a totally different thing. You know what I mean and so so I think you need to kind of you know.

14:04.66
Henry
The air.

14:12.53
Mike
Kind of evaluate that with a grain of salt right? But I feel like um, you know and I mean we've talked about we've we've recorded many different podcasts on Zuckerberg and Musk and as we all know they're my 2 favorite human beings. Um, but the 1 thing that I will. Kind of give Zuckerberg here is that he is um to me. He's evidentcing that he is more. He's the more astute business person here right? I mean you know what you've got is is that.

14:45.13
Henry
Ah.

14:49.94
Mike
Um, elon musk has you know $44000000000 he can light on fire buying Twitter right? literally like a rocket. He probably just took the people but as well just put the money under the bottom of the rocket and said let's just use this as the insulation or something but but you know the. The the what you've got right now is you have Twitter basically lost one of its biggest users and influencers when they banned Donald Trump okay and and that was that started the whole true social thing and that was supposed to be the launch pad for truth social and I think there's like Donald and 2 other people on this thing.

15:19.12
Henry
Um, yeah.

15:28.12
Mike
and and um you know so what you've got right now is you're coming into an american election cycle right? It's November you've got Elon Musk who's literally blown Twitter up like you know he's gotten rid of the of the moderation group.

15:42.96
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah.

15:46.40
Mike
Ah, how do you go into an election where there's all of these rules right? They're not just moderation. There's rules about what you can say which you can't say disinformation misinformation. All that stuff. It doesn't exist anymore on Twitter or sorry sorry x sorry x right.

15:57.73
Henry
Um, yeah, and he himself says crazy things.

16:04.35
Mike
So so what you've got is is you've got you know you got Zuckerberg basically launch threads and I I was just literally wow while Jeff was talking I mean because I will put this out there I don't use threads. Okay I'm just gonna let everybody know that? um.

16:14.73
Henry
Are.

16:20.50
Mike
But and I actually don't I actually technically don't use x Twitter either because I'm still banned. Um, you know what I mean but but what you have is is you had Twitter had ah had a group of users that was generally just kind of it was meant to be more. It was quicker it was quicker opinions it was more

16:24.48
Henry
Yeah I know.

16:38.82
Mike
You know, like if you really wanted to know what was going on in the world. You just checked Twitter you didn't check Facebook pages you didn't look at Instagram posts you went to Twitter and Musk has basically kind of screwed that right now and so you're rolling into an election cycle where. Um, you know it wasn't it was just early like sorry late last year that there was lots of headlines that were saying threads was dead. You know they started it up. They had ah 100000000 users from unlike day one and then like a year later they only added 30000000 more.

17:01.17
Henry
Um, yeah.

17:10.26
Mike
So it was like oh Matt is going to pull the plug get out it whereass right? now. What they've got is is because of the coincidence of in the interim Musk buying Twitter converting it to x killing the brand and basically you know like basically kicking all the advertisers off the platform and making everybody think he's this is it.

17:27.15
Henry
Um, oh that's right, he insults them.

17:29.67
Mike
By all of this happening what you've got is now Zuckerberg's got a. He's got a bounce right? He's bouncing off the bottom. He's coming up to the top. He's got an opportunity to actually steal Twitter's thunder with threats if he does it right? and they just I just read they just.

17:32.79
Henry
Um, yeah.

17:41.76
Henry
Are.

17:47.89
Mike
In December of twenty twenty three finally launched in Europe so threads wasn't available. It took them five months to go through the the Eu Digital Markets act just to be able to launch.

17:52.89
Henry
Um, ah.

18:03.14
Mike
Because the eu's got some of the most you know, kind of stringent eye penalty legislation against you know oh somebody's posted a lie somebody's posted. You know a naked picture somebody's posted something you got to get rid of it or we're taking 5% of your profit.

18:10.86
Henry
Yeah, and though it it yeah good for them. So that means that that threads must be serious about this to actually make such an effort to get into Europe.

18:21.77
Mike
Well or at the at the very least right? If if you're if you're a business person or a gambler right? You're going to look at you're rolling into the fall. You've got another nine months where there's going to be lots of money spent on. On kind of social media and advertising and engaging with audiences and all this stuff if this thing is going to ever go. It's going to be now I think what you have in in meta and Zuckerberg and the whole thing is he smells blood in the water. He actually has been presented. With an opportunity to verifiably 100 % actually kill Twitter which he's trying to do for years. So thank you Elon for jumping right in there.

19:01.52
Henry
Interesting. Okay, um, fascinating Jeff what do you think based on what Mike said and of course you know regarding? do they have a future.

19:12.65
Geoff
They do absolutely I I just want to put what I just want to dovetail 1 other thing against what what you and Mike were saying about the dma the digital markets act in Europe because in addition to everything that that Mike said the other key provision was.

19:23.75
Henry
Who.

19:32.80
Geoff
That the that the law puts a lot of stringent rules around sharing user data across multiple platforms. So if you want to use your Google credentials to log into you know some.

19:42.96
Henry
Um, ah.

19:50.40
Geoff
Website about corgis. Well the amount of data that can be shared back and forth. There is is quite strictly controlled and as I said at the top in order to use threads you need to have an Instagram account and so.

20:02.18
Henry
Who.

20:05.93
Geoff
You know, although they're presented as distinct products. The data is shared back and forth between them and and when it first launched if you wanted to delete your threads account. You had to delete your Instagram account so they've since they've since fixed that.

20:17.22
Henry
Oh wow.

20:22.87
Geoff
Where you can sort of shut down threads without killing Instagram but for months that was the case so people are like what do you mean because they they'll have this Instagram account with 10000 pictures and interactions and what have you they've dabbled in threads. They say that's not for me delete and. And that doesn't work whereas the millions of people right now that are deleting Twitter it doesn't have any other impact in their life against you know against the other things. So so they've they've fixed that now it does boggle my mind a little bit that they didn't figure that out in the beginning.

20:45.59
Henry
Um, yeah, good point.

20:59.58
Geoff
You would think one lone employee ah 1 lone lawyer in Europe could have said raised their hand and said you're planning on doing what? ah but um, but yeah, so so there was that piece. Um, there are a few other pieces of there are a few other Twitter features that are missing.

21:02.49
Henry
Um.

21:19.41
Geoff
And it is for some users. It's it's pretty jarring that they're missing. So the first thing that's missing is hashtags so Twitter for for you know, a decade has been really big on hashtags right? so.

21:32.67
Henry
Who.

21:35.42
Geoff
If you want to read tweets about the Barbie movie and you say where are my pink shoes to the new barbiemovie hashtag barbiemovie hashtag Girlpower. You could just click on that Hashtag and and you know read all the other public tweets that were of a similar vein reply to them read retweet them share them what you know. What have you? Um, but that that feature doesn't exist in threads which is odd because it does exist in Instagram and it does of course exist in Facebook. So so that's that's sort of a jarring omission. Um, the other thing is Twitter has. Had this feature called trending this panel on the side that would say so if there was some major news event like a court challenge to Donald Trump's eligibility to be on the on the ballot in Maine and Colorado then it would say trending.

22:27.10
Henry
Um.

22:29.50
Geoff
You could click on that and then you could read sort of the highest you know the the highest ranked shared the tweets about that which would by extension be senior political analysts. What have you? um or yeah and for some people that was literally how they got their news right? So you log into Twitter.

22:46.29
Henry
Um, sure.

22:48.15
Geoff
And you see what's trending and then you know that's that's the news. Um, and then the final thing I'll mention that that's that's missing is there's no dms that they're called. There's no direct messaging. So if if you and I are both on thread or both on Twitter part of me and we're both friends. Follow each other I can message you back and forth within within Twitter and I can you know I can I can message a tweet to you in Twitter hey did you see this tweet I think this was pretty funny or this guy's an idiot or whatever you can't do that in threads. And again you can do that in Instagram so it's a bit weird that it's you know that it's that it's not over over there in in threads either. So you can see how some people who might use those features pretty heavily in Twitter. Going over to threads that tried out and say well I miss this and I miss this and I miss this but I would say that I would say that would likely change I can't imagine that there. There's such critical features in Instagram for example, I can't imagine they wouldn't wind up in in threads eventually.

24:01.34
Henry
Ah, okay, hold on I'm going to come up with a question here based on your information here. We go. Ah okay. Okay, I'm gonna talk I'm gonna ask about activity pub. Whatever that is right? Okay, ah here we go. Thank you Jeff they've also mentioned threads I mean that they're starting to roll out something called Activity Pub integration now I don't know what that is um, what do you know about it and does this make a difference.

24:37.60
Geoff
A great question. It doesn't make a difference yet. But I think it will make a difference in the in the future since the dawn of social media. One of the things that has frustrated users. Is the lack of interoperability between these platforms. So if we look at something like instant messaging if I want to you know if I want to message some people I use facebook messenger other people text messages other people Whatsapp other people kind of have to know in your head who. What are the different ways you would communicate with these people and and expect to get a response and and whenever there's a temp set integration. Ah between these, they're all shot down lawsuits what have you similarly, you know a decade ago companies like hootsuite kind of did their best that if you wrote a tweet. It would also appear in your Facebook feed if you made a Linkedin post. It could be turned into a Twitter post. You know so you didn't have to constantly manage and cut and paste and do all these things. Um and all of that has kind of fallen down because of because of lack of interoperability and the the latest attempt at this. Um.

25:34.30
Henry
Really yeah.

25:51.46
Geoff
Is the activity pub protocol that allows ah that that has has attempted to build an open source Twitter -like community called the fetaverses where and the most common term that people would hear about this is Masto Dawn so mastodon is is an open source alternative alternative to twitter that's been around for several years now where you can have these different mastodon servers these different instances and they can pass messages back and forth between each other.

26:09.33
Henry
Um, oh yeah, ah.

26:27.63
Geoff
Using this activity pub protocol so you could make your own Twitter and design it. However, you want and if your buddy's on a different mastodonish Twitter then the messages can go back and forth and you can reply and see and and what have you. And this was all sort of academic up until last summer because Mastodon is fine but it's sort of cleeky even someone relatively technical like me when I dabble in there I feel like I'm interacting with the comic book guy from the Simpsons and and. You know it' it's very tight very specialized community sometimes the intellect of people in there can be intimidating to others so it hasn't gotten a lot of traction but threads has said hey we're going to support the activity pub protocol which means if you. Like the warm fuzzy experience that is threads and your comic book guy friend is on mastodon. Well he can see your messages and you can see his and and this is you know this is the first nod you know much like.

27:33.95
Henry
Okay.

27:41.71
Geoff
Yeah, this is the first nod to sort of open source social networking now you know much like Microsoft making promises to linux for the past twenty years that never come to anything I I don't know I don't know if this will truly materialize into anything meaningful. Um. But it is you know everybody who's interviewed from threads all the management team from threads I'll speak pretty earnestly about this. So I you know I can't help but wonder if it if if it's real.

28:15.66
Henry
Yeah, okay, ah I'd like to get back to a question that I posed earlier um that you didn't actually have a chance to to address because as you know we tend to go on interesting other paths but that's fine and I'd like to start. Like with you and then I'd like to get from Jeffrey your ah your take on it and that is of course Jeff you had mentioned that the experience on threads is is is more pleasant. It's more I guess mature it's just more sensible and nice. Um, however, the question I had asked earlier was. Do you feel that it will remain a better experience or do you feel that it's inevitable that these aren't social media sites and communication apps. Ah they tend to deteriorate and and and go down a much more.

29:09.87
Henry
You know a lousy path something That's just not enjoyable and and rude.

29:16.53
Mike
Oh well I'll I'll take ah I'll take a shot at that one Henry um I think that the thing that we all need to remember is is the reason why a lot of these social media apps. Go this way is because of the people that use them humans are not are just generally, um. You know at least by all appearances. Not very nice, right? Well, it's you know it's just you you don't you don't go on social media. You do not sign up for Instagram or Facebook or whatever it is and post pictures and stories and.

29:36.37
Henry
Yeah, and when they can hide they say crazy things.

29:51.87
Mike
And here I am enjoying my dinner and here's my dinner tomorrow and here's my breakfast in the morning and all this other kind of stuff if you don't want to open yourself up to the rest of the world. So you're you're basically kind as saying I'm not a private individual.

30:01.86
Henry
Um.

30:07.66
Mike
Right? I mean what? what's the biggest one I think it I think you know Instagram Facebook you know the meta thing is a couple billion people. There's 5000000000 other people that aren't using them. Okay, so so you know you could argue that the 2000000000 people that sign up that when you sign up for social media. You're basically sign up to being trolled.

30:16.38
Henry
Um, right.

30:26.20
Mike
I Mean that's just the reality. Um and and and this is this is kind of that you know the social media has turned us all into brands and movie stars looking for influence not into ah you know humans that are looking to share pictures of our cats. And a lot of that is is to just point about you know the hashtags on on threads is is a uiux thing right? It's it's the idea is is that is that.

30:47.61
Henry
Who.

30:53.28
Mike
Um, you know the default position when you sign up for Instagram or for Facebook or whatever is not a private account right? Where where you just you know you you sign up and and I invite you Henry and invite you Jeff and now I've got a 3 person Instagram network.

31:03.10
Henry
That's true.

31:11.24
Mike
But the default position is you're public and you have to go in and set the settings so that you're not public and and and so I think that I think that the you know the the idea is that you're getting invited to be trolled because you know there's lots of other people who seem to have nothing better to do.

31:14.98
Henry
Right.

31:29.98
Mike
But sit around all day and search you know content that is um, you know objectionable to them in some form right? Whether it's you know issues like pro-life pro-choice or Trump or not do Trump whatever um, and you just go after people.

31:38.84
Henry
Um, here.

31:44.49
Henry
Um, yeah.

31:46.47
Mike
And and and and you know it's also let's face it right? I mean I may be on um you know on a social network I may be identifying myself as you know, ah fuzzy bunny slippers 86 and and so I'm not telling the men who I am.

32:02.69
Henry
Yeah.

32:05.12
Mike
And so it's easy I'm standing you know I might as well be you know, kind of wearing one of those voice things that they always have when when people Rob banks and they talk to you know they mean and they on the Tv shows they're like but I mean you know you don't know who I am so I can I can say whatever I want.

32:12.28
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the problem. Yeah.

32:21.58
Mike
You know what? I mean like literally like I can't do this in public if I walk up to a human on the street and I start yelling at them calling them names cursing Yada Yada Yada I get arrested and then potentially I get sued but I can do this on an online platform I can even go as far as actually saying I'm going to come to your house and kill you.

32:32.63
Henry
Um.

32:36.31
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah, it does.

32:38.85
Mike
And at which I happens to like politicians every day you know and and I can go and do this and and you know nobody can find me or it's really hard. So I think the thing that we need to remember about all of these all of these networks right? is that you're they they turn into something. Evil.

32:47.43
Henry
Right? right? right.

32:58.29
Mike
Because you are there if you don't want to be trolled if you're a politician right? You need to be on Twitter or sorry x you need to be on Facebook you need to be on all these things because otherwise the other politician who is willing to be there will will win your seat in the next election because nobody knows who you are.

33:05.40
Henry
Who.

33:14.59
Henry
Um, yep.

33:18.60
Mike
Well, then you're basically opening yourself up. So what I'm kind of interested in seeing is you know when you see a lot of these people who are like I'm picking on politicians because it's election time. But if you see a lot of these especially in you know you've seen it in Canada recently right? where females. Who are in politics women get especially violently trolled violently trolled right and they get violently trolled and so you know I'm what I'm looking forward to is when people just say you know what? enough's enough I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to invite myself to be.

33:40.50
Henry
Um, they really do it's it's embarrassing. It's terrible.

33:54.28
Henry
Ah.

33:55.90
Mike
You know, threatened that that I'm going to be pursued and and have terrible things happen to me in my family. Forget it. It's not worth it if you want to vote for me because I'm representing you as ah as ah ah, ah ah you know a relevant competent human being in your writing great if you need to see me on Twitter so that you can abuse me.

34:03.75
Henry
Um.

34:15.80
Henry
No, hopefully hopefully we'll go down that path.

34:15.40
Mike
You're not I'm not going to be there. But.

34:17.19
Geoff
So yeah I mean it's it's a great question Henry yeah, and you know if you look if you think about Twitter when Twitter first launched it had 140 character limit because it existed so that you could send Twitter an sms message to it.

34:32.44
Henry
Yes.

34:35.10
Geoff
Hey we're all going to the zoolander movie at seven o'clock and broadcast that out to your network right? or you know I had scrambled eggs for breakfast and now it is you know it. It grew to influence elections. So.

34:48.60
Henry
Yeah.

34:50.60
Geoff
To to say this is what it is to Facebook existed. So Mark Zuckerberg could could meet young women at college and now it's grown into you know, affecting elections in Myanmar so one you know well true.

35:01.42
Henry
Incredible at Myanmar how about America.

35:07.47
Geoff
So it's it's difficult you know it's difficult to to use a crystal ball. But I think you know we like using our crystal ball. So we're going to. We're going to do it I think right now it's ah it's a nice nicer place than Twitter and you asked I think is it going to stay that way. And I think that Zuckerberg and his team will try to have it stay that way and there's I think there's a hard reason and a soft reason. Yeah, the first is the soft reason we talked about his antipathy towards Musk.

35:32.91
Henry
Um, it differs raniator.

35:43.44
Henry
Who.

35:45.35
Geoff
And I think I think he wants to be able to be the the anti-twitter and say hey I got this nice place and I'm going to inter up with mastodon and you know come on over here and to to continue to grow and grow his base because. As I've said in previous podcasts tick talk is surging in popularity and one of the reasons is because it's a nice place to be the others and to do that will require investment investment in trust and safety investment. Check so Tiktok isn't yes you're right threats. Um.

36:14.29
Henry
Um, you you mean thread will increase in popularity. You said Tiktok.

36:22.86
Geoff
And then the other piece of it is They are not running ads right now but you have to assume they are going to run ads in the future and if they want to attract general motors and cheerios and red bull and all of these big big pocket advertisers.

36:29.33
Henry
Um, you do.

36:36.54
Henry
Are.

36:40.99
Geoff
Then again, they need to create an environment where their ads aren't being served up in a thread pardon the pun where people are talking about how Nazis are awesome. So so it's it's in their interest to.

36:54.96
Henry
Um.

36:57.26
Geoff
Keep those Nazis off the platform. So.

36:57.67
Henry
Yeah, or the owner doesn't post something Absolutely anti-semitic.

37:04.80
Geoff
Yeah, exactly So I am I am cautiously optimistic that it will stay friendly for now both but but perhaps not for altruistic reasons for business reasons and for um, you know.

37:14.85
Henry
Right.

37:21.42
Geoff
Anger with Musk reasons and so those are you know that's why I I remain cautiously optimistic about the platform but on the other hand if you know to some degree that toxicity that controversy. All that stuff tends to drive engagement. And maybe if threads is just continues to consistently be just you know, unicorns and balloons. Maybe people will you know start to start to so leave it just because it's not It's not that interesting to them. It's not that it doesn't have that controversy that.

37:56.79
Henry
Um, yeah, yeah.

38:00.17
Geoff
That perhaps they're seeking so whether they can whether they can walk that tight rope I don't know time will tell.

38:07.96
Henry
Oh and and Jeffrey we mentioned that threads has about 160000000 users ah can you share with us because I can't remember how many users does Twitter have about.

38:21.42
Geoff
I think around 200000000 users right? Now. It's a little bit difficult maybe 250000000. It's a little bit difficult to talk ah to to actively or to it's a little bit difficult to describe with any degree of precision because for example. I have a Twitter account I haven't I haven't closed it but I'm not active on Twitter anymore. So I suppose in some counts you would count me as a user there's there's a history of tweets for me that kind of stall out in October of last year so would you count me as a user or not.

38:44.50
Henry
It's okay.

38:56.16
Henry
That's a good question because I've seen estimates anywhere I did a Google search anywhere from 200 to almost five hundred so this that's big range. Okay.

38:56.25
Geoff
But.

39:00.28
Geoff
Yeah, yeah, effort for that very reason so threads isn't there yet, but they can see it from where they are now and if a few more of those Instagram people fall over and and and keep in mind again, what is the. What's the population of the eu as of two months ago they didn't have access to threats not even through a vpn now they do so what you're going to see there will be interesting as well because that's hundreds millions of more potential users who could could flow onto the threads platform.

39:27.59
Henry
Um, ah oh yeah.

39:36.80
Henry
Well Jeffrey Michael thank you um let's keep our eyes. Let's watch what's happening with threads because it may warrant another podcast in the future and let's hope it does.

39:46.41
Geoff
Yeah, especially with the election in the us this year what What? the effect what these social media platforms will do with these elections. It's be interesting to watch. But.

39:59.90
Henry
There's going to be lots of material for us. Thank you very much gentlemen and chat later. Thank you.

40:02.50
Mike
Thank you Henry as you know I always love talking about Zuckerberg so I'm looking forward to coming back. Thanks boys.

40:07.25
Geoff
Thanks guys.