Why I Think Threads Feels Friendlier Than X (for now)
Threads has genuinely become one of the best PR wins (IMO) for any Big Tech leaders in recent memory.
Mark Zuckerberg has become public enemy number one for a few years. Facebook groups have been a hotbed for algorithmically induced political radicalization. Instagram has rightfully been accused of being a driver of poor mental health among teens (especially young women) to drive engagement and ad revenue. Documentaries like The Social Dilemma and the Facebook Files whistleblower stories in the Wall Street Journal have lent credibility to those accusations.
Zuck has profited handsomely off an addicting product that has been a net negative on the world.
Who would've thought his team at Meta would be heralded for bringing one of the healthier social networks to market? For a brief moment, thanks to a feature-light product and a series of own goals by Elon Musk, Zuck is the good guy.
Or at least the slightly less bad guy. For now.
It could be better, but Threads is a friendlier social network compared to most now.
Why is that? I have a few theories.
Early Adopters Are Willing It (Kind Of)
The early adopters of Threads joined it for similar reasons. They like Twitter from a pure technology perspective. They hate the trolling, disinformation, harassment, and toxic behavior on the platform.
The consensus is that engagement is, while not perfect, exponentially less terrible than what they've experienced on X.
As a result, those early adopters (like myself) are determined to keep Threads more amicable. Most of its users joined the platform simply because it was friendlier and less toxic, making it less harmful. While a diversity of thought exists on Threads, its users are unified on this front, which is good.
It's negative group polarization. Many internet users have been drawn to Threads based on their distaste for the other - X.
Trolls Stay on X Because the Toxicity is a Feature, Not A Bug
Why have few internet trolls followed people over to Threads yet (at least for the most part)?
Twitter has always had problems with bots and trolling. It's a challenge any social network has. The few guardrails Twitter had on that front were burned to the ground when Elon Musk acquired the network.
But free speech...
Trolls are staying on Twitter because Elon has taken an extreme laissez-faire approach to moderation. They can do pretty much anything they want. You can agree with that approach or not. You can have issues with what is moderated and what isn't. There are good-faith discussions to have on that front (most just aren't done in good faith).
The reality you cannot deny is that, like it or not, content moderation builds a better user experience. If you blow that up (like Elon appears to have on Twitter), you make a product less usable to the average person. He's turning Twitter/X into another 4chan with a more wealthy owner.
The same trolls who mocked autonomous zones in places like Seattle or Portland have their digital autonomous zones created by Elon Musk -and are seeing less than hospitable results.
Limited Hot Takes
Hot takes are still on Threads. It's the internet, after all!
Threads are not news-forward like Twitter, so they don't have things like trending topics. Breaking news breaks a little slower there. That aggravates some people who were used to Twitter's lightning-fast real-time news delivery from people on the ground.
What Threads lacks in news features, it gains by limiting hot takes. Users aren't incentivized to react to a trending topic. There's an extra layer of friction for misinformation, and watching hot takes quickly turn to freezing cold ones.
I'll write more in another post on why Threads' lack of features is good. For now, I think some of the functionality it lacks is making our worst online behaviors a little harder to engage in.
What do you think?
Is Threads a safer place than X at this moment? Have you used it? Have you thrown X in the trash in favor of Threads?