In the battle of the billionaires, do you have to choose a side?

On the evening of July 5, Meta—parent company to Facebook and Instagram—rolled out its Twitter-killer, "Threads". The reaction among some people to this was analogous to the Allies rolling into Paris. Finally, someone is saving social media!

I find this to be... odd. 

Many of the people praising Threads—and by extension, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—at one time pilloried Facebook for its role in the 2016 election. And yet, because they are upset that their playpen has been trashed by new owner Elon Musk, it seems as if all these doubts and calumnies have been sent down the memory hole. During 2016, the Facebook Effect was as, if not more, deleterious than Twitter's influence. Facebook has made no mea culpas, and has not altered its business model one whit. Disinformation is still rife on Facebook. It's still used as a political disrupter across the world. And yet Threads is now all the rage because... reasons?

And let's talk about a couple of features of this new site.

First, unlike with Twitter, it doesn't have a native desktop version. If you have a link to an account, yes, you can view that on your web browser. But if you go to the homepage, all you see is a QR code and an invitation to download the app. This app requires many permissions on your mobile device. It is primarily a data-harvesting app.

And then, say you do sign up, and you use your Instagram account to do so. And say that after a few days you decide it's just not for you, and you want to remove the app and delete your account. Sure, you can do that; but you'd also have to delete your Instagram account. 

I don't know what you'd call it, but it's certainly shady.

But I want to circle back on how many resister accounts gleefully decamped to Threads, all their doubts about Zuckerberg becoming as chaff in the wind.

Yes, social media is what you make it. But social media, systemically, is in crisis. Instead of rewarding community and civility, it rewards abrasiveness and conflict. Its algorithms give you that sweet dopamine hit when one of your posts goes mildly viral. Decades of behavioral laboratory experiments have ripened into what we see now with social media, where the algorithm rewards you for a certain type of engagement in the same way that rats are in the lab for choosing the right path through the maze. Social media is addictive, and it's made purposefully so. As it is often said, we are not the customers; we are the product. We are the product to be sold to advertisers. We are the product whose data is sold to whomever has the price of admittance. 

Now, we've made this devil's bargain. We sell our digital selves, and we get something in return. But the question is: What are we getting in return? Is it equal to our human value? Was it ever an equal exchange? Is the rate of return becoming less and less? Are we selling ourselves for cheaper and cheaper?

Crowning Zuckerberg—whose malfeasance is as great as Musk's—as social media's savior is strange, to say the least. But for me, this points to two things: our need to belong, and our need to be seen.

As you know, I'm on Counter Social right now. There, the rewards are given to those who engage in community and civility. But, let's face it: nothing on that site will ever become culturally viral. Nothing we say on there will make it into the news. It's that need to be seen, to be acknowledged, which drives so much of social media. We want to make a splash, we want to get reposted. Doing so might lead to monetary rewards. But the rush is usually reward enough. (I have had a couple of my tweets go viral. I did not like the experience one bit.) Musk's moves have made that virality less possible on Twitter, unless you pay a monthly fee. The move to Threads is to recapture that possibility. In doing so, however, one is simply replacing Peter with Paul.

To quote Lin-Manuel Miranda, people want to be in the room where it happens. If it's no longer Twitter, they will seek that place. Even if what's "happening" isn't healthy for you; that doesn't matter. It's the adrenaline that one needs. What social media over the past fifteen years has conditioned us to be is to be always online, always available, our eyeballs always scanning the screen. I'm as guilty of this as anyone; I'll be idling at a red light and will open up my phone. And this is simply not a healthy, human life.

All of us have a need to belong. And many of us want to be on the big stage. I'm not saying don't join Threads, or leave Twitter, or anything like that. That's up to every person's needs. And there are very good reasons to be on those services, as when you're promoting your business. I will eventually check out Threads to see if it's a place to promote this blog. That being said, that insatiable need to be on the "big stage" is what the likes of Musk and Zuckerberg rely on. And that is why for me there is no difference between them. In this war, I choose neither.

***

Like what you're reading? Never miss another post! Get notified via email here.

Donate at the link below to keep us going.