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I think this entire article has missed the point. For all the blather about enabling creatives, the fact is that the moment one of those creatives "gets politi

I think this entire article has missed the point. For all the blather about enabling creatives, the fact is that the moment one of those creatives "gets political" (as determined by Threads, however they want, with no human appeal), their content will become effectively invisible [0]. Since a huge amount of creativity revolves around political themes - inequality, police brutality, racism, etc - this means that sooner or later creatives will start realizing that Zuck has Zuckerberged them once again. And it's not just creatives. A large portion of science is inherently political - as we've seen demonstrated amply in the last few years. Threads can say - "hey, we were open from the start that this is a safe space, a conflict free zone - so please remove your political science which shows that oligarchs are burning the planet, and never reach our sheltered normies again". Even (especially?) education is political. Will teachers get shadowbanned for pointing out they can't afford pencils for their class? Or for asking to be able to teach evolution in the South? That's up to Threads, and it's being spun as a good thing that the place will be "less toxic". Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies, too-big to fail pharma giants and banks, KKK-funding beer companies and anti-abortion chicken sandwich shops will be heavily advertising to these hundreds of millions of Threaders. That's not political though; because money. Any meta-Threads about this can be deemed as 'political', and thus made invisible. I think this is a giant brainwashing machine; even worse than Facebook. And it won't make people smarter, or give people more time to engage in politics offline; it'll just make reaching any anti-corporate tipping point that much harder. 0 - https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads-news-politics-adam-mosseri-meta-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/7/23787334/instagram-threads...

Brendinooo 3y ago
I dunno, you're posting on a forum that actively tries to avoid particular kinds of politics, and 1) the majority seems to like it, and 2) it doesn't mean that important issues aren't aired out here. There's a flip side to your argument as well, that too much politics can be bad for you.[0] I don't think the solve for that is "binge on zuckerberg-approved sugar instead", but it certainly is an elephant in the room. But yeah, it'll come down to how things are moderated. Really though, it'll only be a problem if Threads becomes dominant enough to suck the oxygen out of other rooms. There is not currently a shortage of places online to freely talk about anything you've mentioned. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/reading-too-much-political-news-bad-happiness/616651/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/reading-t...
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  Not OP but I sorta disagree that this forum actively tries to avoid politics. As the person above mentioned, politics are ingrained in society, science, art, etc. This site does not censor based on that and often has in-depth discussions around the politics of a science or society. This site and it's moderation is also different on a wholesale level from a meta product and real moderators and users calling out something for being "overly political" is inherently different from how a meta backed service would. We've already seen how resistant meta is to remove far-right extremist groups, as angry boomers are their bread and butter. I can see Threads optimize for certain politics that get bottom of the barrel engagement akin to various "Heritage not Hate" facebook groups that are absolutely about hate.
  - Brendinooo 3y ago
    > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity. From the guidelines. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't get submitted because we know what the rules are, and even more stuff that gets flagged pretty quickly if it's a hot-button topic. And yet, like you're saying, good conversations around political topics does occur. Yes, the moderation here is different than what Meta can do at scale. That's why I said what I said in my reply - it'll come down to how what kinds of moderation decisions are made. There's nothing inherently wrong with someone wanting to start a social network with a idea of the kind of content it wants to host; it's only a problem if it monopolizes the discourse and starts to wield that power to thumb the scales.
    - dnissley 3y ago
      This forum is pretty good at avoiding political battles. There's plenty of political discourse, however, and it can definitely get pretty heated at times (but not nearly as bad as twitter).
elicash 3y ago
> ...their content will become effectively invisible [0] That link you cited says they won't "discourage or down-rank news or politics." It's the exact opposite of what you said it said. They might change their mind, of course, but it's always possible companies will change their mind.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  Semantics. If you 'encourage' everything that isn't news and politics, with an unaccountable algorithm, that's precisely the same effect as simply down-ranking news and politics. > it's always possible companies will change their mind. It is, and this particularly company has done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt. And, from what I've heard, Threads is already full of vacuous celeb and sports content (while riddled with megacorp ads).
thesuitonym 3y ago
[flagged]
- dingnuts 3y ago
  This is a bad faith retort that shuts down all criticism of the predominant ideology represented in entertainment and news media as well as in power in Washington, and violates the HN comment guidelines requesting we not engage in ideological war. Frankly, your comment is a troll comment.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    If we're quoting HN comment guidelines, you're supposed to interpret comments in the best possible light - which you are clearly not doing. The OP is not trolling. They're referring to a type of justification for censorship that's been used for literally thousands of years; with aspects of political censorship and narrative control. That's very relevant and on topic for this discussion, and there's nothing ideological or bad-faith about it.
llm_nerd 3y ago
"the fact is that the moment one of those creatives "gets political" (as determined by Threads, however they want, with no human appeal), their content will become effectively invisible [0]" Your citation doesn't support your claim. It actually contradicts it. Some users -- particularly those in the news/politics sphere -- were clamouring for more of a news / politics focus. Instagram's head declared that it is not their focus. He went on to specifically note that they weren't going to suppress or discourage those topics, they just wouldn't exaggerate or push it, as is the norm. Because let's be real -- Twitter, Facebook et al push news/politics, particularly news that angers you, because it drives engagement. Many of the major social media news/politics figures were essentially created by these algorithms essentially trying to manufacture engagement, with millions of people spraying spittle and laying trillions of words of noise to zero useful effect on the planet. If Threads stays clear of that, more power to them! In reality eventually someone is going to realize they'll get more ad revenue if they push adversarial content on users, but hopefully it is delayed for a while. And FWIW, there sure are a lot of "creatives" giving political commentary on Threads...they are appearing in loads on my feed.
zpeti 3y ago
I think there is a place for two text based networks, and Zuck has correctly identified the missing one: 1. There's plenty of people (or just moodswings of the same person) who don't want to see political content at a certain time. Remember how everyone loves tiktok because it has super interesting, non political content? That's what threads wants to be with text 2. People do want to keep up with political affairs, and that's also very potent, but can be depressing and overwhelming. 1 is threads, 2 is twitter. I don't think you can have both 1 and 2 in the same app. Because I know when I want to see politics and when I don't, that's not something an app can predict. So both twitter and threads can coexist. But we know twitter maxes out at around 200-250m users. That's the market for a politics social network. I think threads is potentially bigger. But it won't destroy twitter. It will just coexist, in a different market segment.
- falloutx 3y ago
  I feel sad for users of both those apps. I would rather shout in the streets
- Pxtl 3y ago
  But twitter isn't good for 2 anymore since political conversations are now dominated by bluechecks with extreme internet-poisoning. It's like if you went to a bar and the host let people rent megaphones for $10. Only the worst people at the bar even want a megaphone. The old owner gave megaphones to VIPs, and banned the worst people from entering. Now they've all got rented megaphones.
seryoiupfurds 3y ago
I would love to use an app where tiresome, needlessly-outraged perspectives are less prevalent. > A large portion of science is inherently political Political: "science which shows that oligarchs are burning the planet" Non-Political: "science which shows that humanity is releasing XXX tonnes of CO2 per year, which has increased atmospheric CO2 by YYY PPM, which has raised global average temeperatures by ZZZ degrees and is predicted to have effects A, B, and C by the year 2100." Sure some people will choose to have outraged political responses to the latter, but that can be discouraged just as well as "oligarchs are burning the planet". > the fact is that the moment one of those creatives "gets political" (as determined by Threads, however they want, with no human appeal), their content will become effectively invisible This is good for long-term engagement. If someone posts a lot of great content interspersed with occasional outraged political diatribes, then silently downranking the latter will keep their subscribers engaged who only wanted to see the former.

Brendinooo 3y ago

I dunno, you're posting on a forum that actively tries to avoid particular kinds of politics, and 1) the majority seems to like it, and 2) it doesn't mean that important issues aren't aired out here. There's a flip side to your argument as well, that too much politics can be bad for you.[0] I don't think the solve for that is "binge on zuckerberg-approved sugar instead", but it certainly is an elephant in the room. But yeah, it'll come down to how things are moderated. Really though, it'll only be a problem if Threads becomes dominant enough to suck the oxygen out of other rooms. There is not currently a shortage of places online to freely talk about anything you've mentioned. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/reading-too-much-political-news-bad-happiness/616651/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/reading-t...

MSFT_Edging 3y ago
Not OP but I sorta disagree that this forum actively tries to avoid politics. As the person above mentioned, politics are ingrained in society, science, art, etc. This site does not censor based on that and often has in-depth discussions around the politics of a science or society. This site and it's moderation is also different on a wholesale level from a meta product and real moderators and users calling out something for being "overly political" is inherently different from how a meta backed service would. We've already seen how resistant meta is to remove far-right extremist groups, as angry boomers are their bread and butter. I can see Threads optimize for certain politics that get bottom of the barrel engagement akin to various "Heritage not Hate" facebook groups that are absolutely about hate.
- Brendinooo 3y ago
  > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity. From the guidelines. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't get submitted because we know what the rules are, and even more stuff that gets flagged pretty quickly if it's a hot-button topic. And yet, like you're saying, good conversations around political topics does occur. Yes, the moderation here is different than what Meta can do at scale. That's why I said what I said in my reply - it'll come down to how what kinds of moderation decisions are made. There's nothing inherently wrong with someone wanting to start a social network with a idea of the kind of content it wants to host; it's only a problem if it monopolizes the discourse and starts to wield that power to thumb the scales.
  - dnissley 3y ago
    This forum is pretty good at avoiding political battles. There's plenty of political discourse, however, and it can definitely get pretty heated at times (but not nearly as bad as twitter).

elicash 3y ago

> ...their content will become effectively invisible [0] That link you cited says they won't "discourage or down-rank news or politics." It's the exact opposite of what you said it said. They might change their mind, of course, but it's always possible companies will change their mind.

mandmandam 3y ago
Semantics. If you 'encourage' everything that isn't news and politics, with an unaccountable algorithm, that's precisely the same effect as simply down-ranking news and politics. > it's always possible companies will change their mind. It is, and this particularly company has done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt. And, from what I've heard, Threads is already full of vacuous celeb and sports content (while riddled with megacorp ads).

thesuitonym 3y ago

[flagged]

dingnuts 3y ago
This is a bad faith retort that shuts down all criticism of the predominant ideology represented in entertainment and news media as well as in power in Washington, and violates the HN comment guidelines requesting we not engage in ideological war. Frankly, your comment is a troll comment.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  If we're quoting HN comment guidelines, you're supposed to interpret comments in the best possible light - which you are clearly not doing. The OP is not trolling. They're referring to a type of justification for censorship that's been used for literally thousands of years; with aspects of political censorship and narrative control. That's very relevant and on topic for this discussion, and there's nothing ideological or bad-faith about it.

llm_nerd 3y ago

"the fact is that the moment one of those creatives "gets political" (as determined by Threads, however they want, with no human appeal), their content will become effectively invisible [0]" Your citation doesn't support your claim. It actually contradicts it. Some users -- particularly those in the news/politics sphere -- were clamouring for more of a news / politics focus. Instagram's head declared that it is not their focus. He went on to specifically note that they weren't going to suppress or discourage those topics, they just wouldn't exaggerate or push it, as is the norm. Because let's be real -- Twitter, Facebook et al push news/politics, particularly news that angers you, because it drives engagement. Many of the major social media news/politics figures were essentially created by these algorithms essentially trying to manufacture engagement, with millions of people spraying spittle and laying trillions of words of noise to zero useful effect on the planet. If Threads stays clear of that, more power to them! In reality eventually someone is going to realize they'll get more ad revenue if they push adversarial content on users, but hopefully it is delayed for a while. And FWIW, there sure are a lot of "creatives" giving political commentary on Threads...they are appearing in loads on my feed.

zpeti 3y ago

I think there is a place for two text based networks, and Zuck has correctly identified the missing one: 1. There's plenty of people (or just moodswings of the same person) who don't want to see political content at a certain time. Remember how everyone loves tiktok because it has super interesting, non political content? That's what threads wants to be with text 2. People do want to keep up with political affairs, and that's also very potent, but can be depressing and overwhelming. 1 is threads, 2 is twitter. I don't think you can have both 1 and 2 in the same app. Because I know when I want to see politics and when I don't, that's not something an app can predict. So both twitter and threads can coexist. But we know twitter maxes out at around 200-250m users. That's the market for a politics social network. I think threads is potentially bigger. But it won't destroy twitter. It will just coexist, in a different market segment.

falloutx 3y ago
I feel sad for users of both those apps. I would rather shout in the streets
Pxtl 3y ago
But twitter isn't good for 2 anymore since political conversations are now dominated by bluechecks with extreme internet-poisoning. It's like if you went to a bar and the host let people rent megaphones for $10. Only the worst people at the bar even want a megaphone. The old owner gave megaphones to VIPs, and banned the worst people from entering. Now they've all got rented megaphones.

seryoiupfurds 3y ago

I would love to use an app where tiresome, needlessly-outraged perspectives are less prevalent. > A large portion of science is inherently political Political: "science which shows that oligarchs are burning the planet" Non-Political: "science which shows that humanity is releasing XXX tonnes of CO2 per year, which has increased atmospheric CO2 by YYY PPM, which has raised global average temeperatures by ZZZ degrees and is predicted to have effects A, B, and C by the year 2100." Sure some people will choose to have outraged political responses to the latter, but that can be discouraged just as well as "oligarchs are burning the planet". > the fact is that the moment one of those creatives "gets political" (as determined by Threads, however they want, with no human appeal), their content will become effectively invisible This is good for long-term engagement. If someone posts a lot of great content interspersed with occasional outraged political diatribes, then silently downranking the latter will keep their subscribers engaged who only wanted to see the former.