0:00

Just a quick heads up, this is a fast-moving

0:02

news story. As we put the finishing touches

0:05

on this show, Twitter threatened

0:07

to sue Meta over the Threads

0:10

app. Also, there's a little

0:12

swearing in this episode. Okay,

0:14

here's the show.

0:21

Meta's new app,

0:23

Threads, wasn't supposed to

0:25

launch this week. The company

0:27

had been working on the Twitter competitor for

0:29

about six months, but still wasn't

0:31

ready to unveil it. We

0:33

were actually supposed to launch it at the end of the

0:35

month. Then Elon decided

0:38

to go crazy mode and

0:42

rate-limit people's posts on Twitter, and

0:44

everyone got very upset, so they moved up the

0:46

launch a few weeks.

0:48

That's Mike Isaac, who covers tech for

0:50

The New York Times. He says the launch

0:52

was a little messy, especially getting

0:54

it onto the App Store. But

0:56

on Wednesday night, when the app went public,

0:59

all anyone with an Instagram account had to do

1:01

was add threads, and boom,

1:04

they were on, sharing little

1:06

text-based updates on an interface

1:08

that looks and feels a lot like

1:10

Twitter. People joined it much

1:12

faster than I suspected, and

1:15

my guess is because of that

1:17

close connection to Instagram particularly

1:20

and how you can immediately follow

1:22

basically everyone on there right off the bat.

1:25

On TikTok, people seemed into

1:28

it. Everyone is having a great time on

1:30

threads, like everyone. It's

1:32

the craziest shit I've ever seen. Twitter

1:34

is over, bro. Twitter is officially

1:37

cooked, bro. Instagram done literally

1:39

did it. It's giving me 2012. I'm

1:42

so

1:42

excited to be a thread fluencer.

1:44

Somehow, the cool new

1:46

thing, the social media app

1:48

that might replace Twitter, is

1:51

from the company formerly known as

1:53

Facebook.

1:54

I think it's surprisingly positive for

1:57

a new Facebook product. You know, I don't

1:59

know. I think you and I have been around long

2:01

enough to see a bunch of Facebook launches

2:03

and meta launches of new apps. A lot

2:06

of people complaining, a lot of people just sort of being

2:08

like, I'm not gonna replace my old app with this. But

2:11

the fact that this is so similar

2:14

to Twitter in a lot of ways already,

2:17

I think is making people more open to

2:19

it than they would have otherwise.

2:26

Today on the show, out

2:28

with Elon, in with Zuck? Maybe?

2:32

I'm Lizzie O'Leary, and you're listening to What Next

2:34

TBD? A show about technology,

2:36

power, and how the future will be determined.

2:39

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3:46

If Mark Zuckerberg had dreamed

3:48

up the perfect moment to launch a competitor

3:51

to Twitter, it

3:52

would have looked a lot like this.

3:54

Over the July 4th holiday, Twitter

3:57

effectively broke. Elon Musk imposed

3:59

a ban on Twitter.

5:59

And frankly, if

6:02

you're not able to use an app, you go to

6:05

either you go outside and touch grass like a normal

6:07

person is what Elon was joking

6:09

that people should do,

6:11

or you find another

6:13

app. And I think that's exactly why

6:15

meta and threads was rushed out.

6:18

And in that moment, all

6:20

that those disenchanted Twitter users had to

6:22

do was download one thing and

6:24

log on to an app they already had. So

6:27

you have to have an Instagram account to

6:29

use it, whether it's an existing

6:32

one that you had, you can make a burner new one, which

6:34

I see a lot of people are doing. And it's

6:37

going to be inextricably linked,

6:39

at least for now, to your threads account

6:41

from there. Like me, if you use

6:44

your existing Instagram account, what it'll

6:46

basically ask you to do is you have to

6:48

use your

6:49

existing handle, which ports over and

6:51

they'll ask you, do you want to follow all the people

6:54

that you already follow on Instagram?

6:56

And I was like, all right, sure, I don't

6:58

want to go through and like start

7:00

re-following and figuring out who's on

7:02

there. A lot of people weren't on there because

7:04

I was one of the first people on there. So I just

7:06

sit, follow

7:07

everyone, and it gets you

7:09

into the app almost immediately, basically.

7:12

When I did that, there

7:14

were people in my threads who

7:16

I followed on Instagram, but there were also all these

7:18

random people. Why were they there?

7:20

It seemed like Instagram spent a lot of time

7:23

basically courting influencers

7:26

to come in there and start posting early. It's been

7:28

a few days, like two or three days,

7:30

I want to say, of having

7:32

new folks

7:34

in the app who basically that

7:36

you and I might want to go to these apps for.

7:38

People like

7:40

the Hot Wings Chicken Wing

7:42

account, which I personally

7:45

love to follow. And that Mark Zuckerberg

7:47

replied to and said he hoped to be on the show one

7:49

day, which I'm crossing

7:51

my fingers would actually happen to see Mark

7:54

Zuckerberg read some insane Hot Wings. There

7:57

were random

7:59

influencers

7:59

who are famous online that I'm too old to know

8:02

who they actually are, but they were invited into

8:04

like post a lot. There were other

8:07

sort of celebs, Carly Kloss was

8:09

there posting. And I think the idea

8:11

was get

8:12

the party started, get

8:15

people inside and posting. So

8:17

on day one, when

8:19

random dude in Australia

8:22

opens the app, he's not going to get a blank screen,

8:24

especially because all of his friends

8:26

aren't on there yet either.

8:28

But what I think a lot

8:30

of people like about Twitter is

8:33

that they choose who

8:35

they follow. They are curating

8:38

their own timeline. And it's not

8:40

algorithmically suggested to

8:42

them. Do you know why meta chose

8:45

to go with this algorithmically

8:47

populated feed?

8:49

I think it's a fundamental

8:51

sort of philosophical difference between the

8:53

two companies. You know, in the earliest days

8:55

of Facebook, it was reverse chronological,

8:58

essentially, because that's what people were posting

9:00

from their colleges, their status updates.

9:03

And that was the sort of smaller

9:05

amount of content that they had, but

9:07

still they could kind of sort through it and people

9:10

could sort of digest it.

9:12

This company operates at such an insane scale

9:14

where literally almost half the world is

9:16

using one of its products

9:18

at any given moment in the day. So

9:21

part of it is a scale

9:24

problem just the amount of content sorting

9:26

through stuff. And then the other part of it is

9:28

a

9:29

scale problem on the opposite end. When you're starting

9:31

a new app, you want to sort of fill everything

9:34

with a feed of stuff to keep people

9:36

scrolling. I think I remember

9:38

as this was launching, I was thinking about a conversation

9:41

I had with a

9:42

Facebook exec years ago where

9:44

they were criticizing off

9:47

the record or on background, I guess they were criticizing

9:50

Twitter for never going algorithmic

9:53

in its early days, Facebook

9:55

realized how powerful algorithmic

9:58

based feeds.

9:59

are to keep people around

10:02

and to keep them, if they can nail

10:04

the algorithm,

10:05

interested in what's being posted. And

10:07

I think it's a real culture clash.

10:09

It's hard to convert people who are used to using

10:12

Twitter for a long time into

10:14

that algorithmic-based sort of scrolling,

10:16

but

10:17

Meta's bet is to stick

10:20

it out. And I don't, they haven't said anything

10:22

on whether they would eventually offer reverse

10:24

cron, but I doubt they will.

10:30

When we come back, do you trust Mark

10:32

Zuckerberg with your data?

10:43

Hey listeners, this was one hell

10:46

of a Supreme Court term, and it's gonna be

10:48

a while before we can stop talking

10:50

about it. So we're going to have

10:52

a very special virtual event for

10:54

Slate Plus listeners to keep the conversation

10:57

going. Join me, Dahlia Lithwick,

10:59

legal correspondent and host of

11:01

Slate's Amicus Podcast, and

11:04

my indefatigable

11:07

colleague, Mark Joseph Stern on

11:09

Friday, July 7th at 1230 p.m. Eastern

11:13

time, while we debrief on

11:15

the ethics scandals, the justices,

11:17

and the cases that shocked and surprised us the

11:19

most. We're also gonna answer your

11:21

questions about the court and the decisions

11:24

that came down this term. Slate Plus

11:26

members will receive more information via

11:28

email about how to join our Zoom event. And

11:31

if you are not yet a Slate Plus member, join

11:33

us. You will get access to Zoom

11:36

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11:38

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bonus episodes and segments that come along

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our podcasts. Head to slate.com

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slash plus to sign up today.

11:48

See you next week.

11:51

Let's talk a little bit about audience.

11:54

Obviously, there is this sort of built-in

11:56

audience thing of people who already have Instagram

11:58

accounts, but.

12:00

Is meta thinking we're going to capture

12:02

all of those people who really liked

12:05

OG Twitter and now kind

12:08

of dislike what it's become or Are

12:11

they aiming for new people

12:14

or people who maybe don't want to use Facebook? Like who do

12:16

they want?

12:17

You know, I was sort of complaining about this

12:19

a few months ago on how if

12:22

you notice that when Instagram sort of pivoted

12:24

to Copying

12:26

tick-tock it was all about video,

12:28

right? And and it was making me upset

12:30

because I was like well I can't even post pictures anymore

12:32

because the reels are the only thing

12:34

that are getting shown in the timeline and

12:37

But even that sort of this movement

12:39

to pushing the industry towards video

12:42

Was a bummer to me because I

12:44

enjoy text-based stuff,

12:46

you know for I'm a writer and like,

12:49

you know You're a journalist and like a lot

12:51

of our friends and colleagues

12:54

are on it but even just like other folks who

12:56

communicate well through text and can

12:58

do fun things in text and

13:01

meta Smartly, I think

13:03

still sees that there is an audience for that

13:06

and still sees that

13:07

Twitter for all of its problems travels

13:10

very widely for such a you know niche

13:13

social network of only 200 plus

13:15

million users basically and so I think

13:18

that they

13:19

Believe worldwide there is a global

13:22

audience for text-based communications

13:24

And if they can grab

13:26

it it's just sort of like

13:28

Not seeding any part of the market that

13:30

they can and still feel like they can do multiple

13:32

things at one time and still Go in the direction of

13:34

video Or photos

13:37

in in their other apps, which is also probably why

13:39

they made this a standalone app

13:41

the writer and editor Willie Staley had this

13:43

very funny tweet that Has

13:46

stuck with me in thinking about how threads

13:48

might or might not work which was basically

13:50

I

13:51

don't want to do my bit

13:53

Like you know his sort of like

13:55

shit Yeah, or whatever

13:57

anyone chooses to do. I don't want

13:59

my Twitter persona and

14:02

my Instagram posting pictures of my baby

14:04

to be in the same place.

14:08

I wonder if that is a risk.

14:09

Adam L I

14:15

think it's absolutely an issue. That was my whole problem linking my

14:17

Instagram account to my Threads account because

14:19

if Threads is a Twitter replacement,

14:21

you're asking me to be my Twitter self on

14:24

my Threads self

14:26

account. S

14:26

not

14:32

me making jokes with you. Adam L No,

14:35

totally. So I talked to Adam Massari,

14:37

who's the head of Instagram yesterday,

14:40

just being like, look, my

14:41

the nerd term

14:44

is like graphs. My follower graphs

14:46

are very different across these

14:48

apps. And you're trying to basically merge them.

14:50

And like, what is that going to look like? And how am I going

14:53

to deal with it? And he said, yeah, he said,

14:55

they know it's a problem, essentially, they're like, I

14:57

think, I think, over time,

14:59

we will figure it out. And people people will

15:02

figure out

15:03

how they want to be across these apps,

15:05

or if they want to create new and

15:07

different accounts. S Before I get

15:09

to the internal meta stuff, I want to ask

15:11

you, I guess about this market a little

15:14

bit, because it feels like as we've

15:16

discussed, this is a

15:17

moment, right, that meta is

15:19

seizing on, but

15:20

other companies have been trying to seize on it as well. Blue

15:23

Sky had like its highest download day during

15:26

the whole Twitter brouhaha.

15:28

Is there room for more than one

15:31

Twitter competitor?

15:35

Or is meta so big that

15:37

it's just gonna muscle everybody out?

15:40

Or are people just like sick of having five or

15:42

six different things to check? Adam L

15:44

Yeah, I mean,

15:45

I think the latter point you're making is absolutely

15:47

right. Just like I was even when

15:50

I was using it in the early moments on just

15:52

like am I gonna post the same thing to Twitter

15:54

and threads? Like are people who follow

15:56

me on both of these gonna have to fave both? Like

15:58

it's it doesn't make sense. And it's

15:59

some point you probably

16:03

have to choose and pair down

16:05

the number of apps you're using and what you're using

16:07

them for. I do think that people

16:10

still have these different selves

16:12

that they play across these

16:14

apps and have chosen which ones

16:17

they're okay with doing that for in different

16:19

contexts. So like Discord, for instance,

16:21

that's like where I am

16:24

a gamer nerd and I'm fine with that,

16:26

right? Or like a podcast

16:29

I listen to has a Discord and I go talk with

16:31

people in there or a

16:32

band that

16:34

I listen to has their own Discord and I'll go

16:36

talk with music people in there. So that's that

16:38

particular context and I'm obviously not my

16:40

Twitter self from there, but

16:43

maybe I still have my Blue

16:45

Sky account, which is still relatively

16:47

niche, by the way. Their early signups,

16:49

because it's an invite-only system,

16:52

were slowly gated intentionally.

16:55

And frankly, they probably

16:57

couldn't have handled such an insane heavy load

17:00

to begin with because of being a startup

17:02

and having smaller sort of infrastructure

17:05

compared to a Facebook or a Meta. So

17:08

I still think there's probably room

17:10

for other apps, but I do think people have to choose

17:12

at some point if they don't want to spend

17:15

all their time figuring

17:17

out what different things are going on across

17:19

those apps. For Meta, threads

17:22

could be a win. To be frank,

17:24

the company needs one after brutal

17:26

layoffs and a self-described year

17:29

of efficiency. And of

17:31

course, years of scandals before

17:33

that.

17:35

Even if people are still skeptical of Mark

17:37

Zuckerberg, they are more

17:39

skeptical of Elon Musk. I

17:41

was talking to my editor yesterday

17:44

about this and I and she

17:47

and I were thinking, we're like, what is the last stretch

17:50

of positive, not necessarily

17:52

positive press, but positive sentiment

17:56

around this company and Mark Zuckerberg

17:58

in particular, that they...

17:59

had and it has been a

18:02

while. I think that, um,

18:04

I think there's a few things going on. One I do

18:06

think that, um, Zuckerberg

18:09

wants to be liked and

18:11

enjoy is enjoying this moment. I think that's

18:13

also why he's probably leaning into the, uh,

18:16

Elon rivalry thing and like being

18:18

willing to fight him and all that stuff

18:20

with the UFC thing, which is a whole nother absurd

18:23

deal. Um, and I

18:25

think that like, you know, folks at Facebook

18:27

had been really battered for a while, especially after

18:29

getting tens of thousands of their colleagues

18:32

laid off, uh, earlier this year

18:34

and last year. And so this

18:36

is a real sort of win

18:38

moment for them, I think early

18:40

on as they're, they're trying to recover.

18:43

And like the feeling is palpable. I was

18:45

talking to employees yesterday who are just like

18:47

sort of enjoying it, fist pumping, feeling

18:50

that like first day of school moment on Twitter,

18:52

but

18:53

something they own and run and

18:55

they're, they're loving it for now,

18:57

at least. Is this an

18:59

admission that the metaverse is not working

19:02

out? Uh,

19:05

I think that

19:07

meta doesn't want to admit that

19:09

the metaverse is

19:11

not working out, but at the same time

19:13

are still trying to incorporate it into the

19:15

many projects they have going on right now.

19:18

Like as you noticed that they pivoted

19:20

to AI as their entire focus,

19:23

but in

19:24

all of the things they talk about with AI, they're

19:26

like, and this is how it will eventually go into

19:28

the metaverse. And so like, instead

19:30

of metaversing their whole thing all the time,

19:33

they're basically, they're not giving up on it. Mark is still

19:35

obsessed with it, but it's like,

19:36

this is going to be far down the road.

19:39

In the meantime, here, the projects we're working on

19:41

right now that we can actually

19:43

gain footing in basically, but they're still

19:45

spinning like crazy on making the metaverse happen.

19:47

So who knows? Who knows if

19:49

they will drop it, it will take a while.

19:52

Let's talk about data and privacy. Jack

19:55

Dorsey tweeted a little

19:57

screenshot of their data

19:59

collection. privacy over at threads. Yeah.

20:02

And he was pretty skeptical. Jack

20:04

is not a Zuckerberg fan to begin with.

20:08

What is their data collection privacy? And

20:10

Facebook meta does not have

20:12

the greatest track record with

20:14

protecting people's data.

20:17

That feels to me like a big question mark hanging out

20:19

there.

20:20

To be clear, Facebook is

20:23

basically like a surveillance operation

20:25

at like the largest scale.

20:29

And I think people

20:31

have to sort of internalize that when

20:34

they

20:35

use any of these apps, basically. Like

20:38

Facebook collects as much data as they're now

20:40

legally allowed to, basically, and use

20:43

that for their very sophisticated ad

20:45

targeting system. And adding another element

20:48

to that with threads is only going to bolster

20:50

that and have them sort of dig into

20:52

the topic-based interests

20:54

that you're talking about, basically, when you're

20:56

on there. I think

20:58

there's

20:58

a little bit of hypocrisy for Twitter

21:01

and Dorsey and Musk sort

21:03

of criticizing some of those data collection practices

21:06

because some of them are standard across

21:08

other apps, including Twitter. And

21:10

standard doesn't mean me saying that it's okay,

21:12

but more recognizing that

21:15

a lot of apps in the industry, especially

21:17

in the social media industry, do this. And

21:20

Facebook is probably the biggest offender,

21:22

if you want to say that. It's

21:24

not uncommon in some ways as well.

21:27

And I think sort of nailing them for

21:29

that is a

21:30

little disingenuous if you don't

21:32

recognize that many of the apps

21:35

you love and are already using also do it too.

21:38

There was something, and

21:40

I don't want to sound too

21:42

nostalgic, but there was something particularly

21:46

weird and freewheeling and

21:48

fun about a certain era

21:51

of Twitter. And I don't know if that's because

21:53

we were all a little bit more naive about

21:56

our online lives or

21:59

if it was because... because celebrities and politicians

22:02

and just like random people who happen to be exceptionally

22:04

funny were all in the same place.

22:07

But I wonder if that's a viable

22:10

thing still. Can that

22:12

kind of energy

22:15

exist again on the internet or

22:17

is that gone?

22:20

I feel like it's all sped

22:22

up these days. I mean, the

22:25

early social internet

22:27

was characterized by a lot of us figuring

22:30

out what to even do online.

22:33

I am thinking back to 2004 version

22:35

of

22:37

me besides being much younger.

22:40

Also just sort of like being new to

22:43

Facebook and figuring out what you do

22:45

on there. And then when I'm served up like

22:47

those posts, here's what you posted 10 years

22:49

ago. I'm like, Oh Jesus, what was

22:52

so basic back then? So

22:55

I think it's like

22:57

this evolution of how we

22:59

are ourselves online and what that looks like.

23:02

And

23:03

now it's a very different environment

23:05

introducing new social apps. And we've developed

23:08

personalities. We've decided this is

23:10

how I'm going to be here. This is what my Twitter self

23:13

is and this is how I'm going to do this and it's fine.

23:16

And it

23:17

feels very much to

23:20

your point, like it's not necessarily the early

23:22

days of these apps and how things were

23:24

magical and we were having fun. There's immediately

23:27

people posting,

23:28

look at this Russian bot, taking

23:31

a crap in my feed or looking,

23:34

look at this

23:35

white supremacist quote

23:37

tweeting me or whatever. It's immediately, it's

23:40

like, Oh, the party's here. And someone

23:42

threw the punch bowl on the floor

23:44

or whatever you want to say, basically. And I think

23:46

that's, it makes it harder to have this sort

23:48

of whimsical attitude last.

23:51

Do we need that?

23:53

Do we need it? Quote

23:56

unquote, digital town square or?

26:00

What Next family, and we're also

26:02

part of Future Tense, a partnership of Slate,

26:04

Arizona State University, and New America.

26:08

And if you're a fan of the show, I have

26:10

a request for you.