"I am drowning in mutes," writes the author of Internet Talk, lameting the growing list of accounts they must silence to enjoy Threads, Zuckerberg's so-called Twitter killer. "Please help."
An unholy concoction of celebrities, meme pages, and brands, making painfully unfunny tweets form the majority of this list, with religious groups, "gurus", and meta (no, not Meta, people just talking about the platform itself) tweets forming the rest. … It seemed that you could batter it into submission by mass muting anything unfunny – but then a new wave of celebrities and brands appears. Keeping up becomes an impossible challenge.
Even after everything Facebook has done, I was (and am) willing to give Threads a try, just in hopes that I can reasonably keep up with people I'm interested in. But the instant wall-to-wall infestation of Brands Being Zany and Privacy Concerns is a cold reminder of who this is for and who is making it.
If it succeeds, one phenomenon we're not ready for, but is inevitable, will be all the right-wingers on Twitter becoming dissatisfied with Twitter and turning their attention to Threads. It's never about free speech, it's about being where the corporate and media center of gravity is, about "owning the libs", FOBLO, etc.
This comic by Ellen Woodbury (@pizzacakecomic on Instagram) sums it all up quite well:
