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Good Lord, people are still thinking it’s 2008?

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Can Meta copy Substack?

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Are we at 50 million yet?

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Jul 7Liked by Alex Kantrowitz

I’m primarily interested in whether Meta adds to Threads 1) a feed of only accounts the user follows 2) that can be viewed in chronological order. That has long been a key differentiator for Twitter, and Twitter’s current Elonified algorithmic feed is not successful. Personally, if all I’m offered is an algorithmic feed of crap I haven’t self-selected, I’m not signing up. I don’t have Facebook or Instagram accounts in part for that reason, and it’s why Twitter has long been the only social media I use.

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Jul 7·edited Jul 7Liked by Alex Kantrowitz

I curiously clicked the "threatened to sue"-link in the article and there I read:

"

Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, told Semafor that Twitter’s accusations are baseless.

“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” he said.

In a tweet posted after this story was initially published on Thursday, Musk wrote that “competition is fine, cheating is not.”

"

So Zuckerberg never was a Twitter employee? That's astonishing, he worked for free and never signed a non-disclosure thingy - a volonteer CEO, how selfless.

Edit at 23:52h CEST: he wasn't, got that mixed up with the project veritas leaks of CEO Zuckerberg (https://www.projectveritas.com/news/facebook-insider-leaks-hours-of-video-of-zuckerberg-and-execs-admitting-they/) and shadowban on twitter which were in the same context at the same time.

But on the employees of twitter quitting ("resignations") and being fired in masses:

"

[…] His acquisition of the company has been characterized by large-scale policy changes, mass layoffs and resignations, and a dramatic shift in the company's work culture. […]

"

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter,_Inc.

So there might be "shadow-employees" as well. Wages for something completely different.. or like when you get money onto your bank account from a neutral sender after having taken a corruption decision. Not new.

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Jul 7·edited Jul 7Liked by Alex Kantrowitz

I don’t remember which news put a graphic few weeks ago indicating that the special “skill” Musk could posses in a cage fight is a “walrus move” in which you attempt to overwhelm opponent with your weight (by - I’m guessing - laying directly on him).

Musk’s moves last couple of days were just such walrus moves - uncoordinated, heavy and desperate: from strange tweets about how better Twitter is for strangers abusing you to legal case which does not seem to have much basis. All that at the top of already poorly handled curbing of traffic since last weekend to confirmation that Twitter ads revenue is down 59% yoy… it really is not a great time for Elon.

On the other hand, Zuck had growing support since the cage fight talks started, sentiment is growing in support of Threads because it’s easy to join, not in eternal beta or complicated to use and it’s not a dumpster fire. The same Zuck that was one of the most hated people for at least a decade, who traded users data impacting 2016 election, who sunk billions into legless metaverse, who had countless memes with him as Darth Vader or cyborg. People decided that even he is better than Musk - predictable evil is better than the chaotic one. If that’s not a come back, I don’t know what is. It looks like he already won the fight and no cage was needed.

Even if that cage fight would end up for him in the most embarrassing way, his public image has already improved, his business standing may improve as well (30M users in 24h shows spectacular growth) and - in some crazy possible future - he could put Threads under management of an independent body to prevent twitterization and that would virtually elevate him to a status of some kinda saviour of humanity. Who would imagine that couple of months ago?

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