100% agree with this and the other post, the biggest red flag is "Meta".
Whoever thought something good and user-first would come out of this wannabe Twitter killer is completely naive.
I expect that federation won't last and there's 2 things that can happen, either Meta decides it's not worth it, or they will find a way to draw out most of federated users and then deal a killing blow to the fediverse.
I was skeptical about being against Meta's Twitter being federated, but now I am totally in favor of it being banned by most instances.
For me the biggest red flag is that they have apps in the EU but what they're doing with this one is so dodgy that they're not even risking entering the EU.
Also, interesting to see a big international company actually back up their "we just won't do europe then"
The way I see it is a mix of all of that, but number 3 is the biggest.
Twitter is not big here. There’s people who use it, sure, but there’s a reason you don’t see that many EU issue trending on Twitter.
Here’s an example out of the top of my head: France is rioting and it barely registered on Twitter.
The biggest European market for Twitter is the UK and it has 19M users, the second biggest is France with 9.5M [1]
The only time I see EU events surging on Twitter is during continental sporting events like Champions League, or Eurovision.
Twitter is just that that big around here.
Instagram on the other hand, I don’t know anyone without an IG account - so that might muddy the waters on this dynamic.
Your point is well taken, and if anything that's a significant understatement. This is one of the most significant protests (or nearly civil war) to occur in France since the Revolution.
> and it barely registered on Twitter.
Indeed. I saw videos of what was happening in Wuhan in late 2019, but tbh it was mostly linked by comments on (where else) HN, so I may not have discovered it via Twitter's own tools.
> Your point is well taken, and if anything that's a significant understatement. This is one of the most significant protests (or nearly civil war) to occur in France since the Revolution.
As someone from Europe who isn't French. It's just another France rioting story. It might be big in France but for the rest of us, it's just looks like another France rioting story which they were doing for the past few months.
It's not just that it's barely registering on Twitter, it's barely registering anywhere because lots of us are just so used to France rioting that it's not really news. It's like mass shootings in the US. I think there was a new one over 4th July holiday period but I am not 100% sure because we're so numb to mass shootings out of the US. They need to do something super wtf like have the police stand outside a classroom while a school shooter is shooting children for us to register.
Yeah, but that may not be accurate. These aren't quite "just more French riots" - they have been unusually serious, violent and destructive. At least, the French seem to think so. (Though this might partly be because it's non-white kids from the banlieu rather than white gilets jaunes from the countryside, I don't know.)
Essentially it's like how the average protest with minorities is treated vs Jan 6....
The former the cops toss tear gas, kettle them and beat them with baton and "rubber" bullets while the latter theres cops literally moving the barricades aside and escorting the rioters around....
Pretty much all videos I've seen of the current riots (mostly filmed via phones from bystanders) in France show a very different picture then racism.
Even that unfortunate incident when they killed the teen was very much reactionary, as people have been throwing Molotov cocktails etc at them for weeks now.
Honestly, i do understand the perspective of the rioters. Not having a chance to improve your life would make me violent too, i think... But framing the police as racists acting out is misguided considering that most of the issues are social in nature and not caused by the police.
And this might be too nitpicky for such an emotional topic, but the term racism gets thrown around way too much. I think it's more akin to classism, as it seems like you're still gonna get discriminated against if you originate from the poor areas, no matter what the color of your skin is.
As a person who has been to many protests I must point out that it's not that the police act exclusively because of racism but rather that thier decisions and choice of tactics are heavily influenced thereby.
Because of thier racism and prejudices they are too quick to use force, tear gas and other "compliance methods" against those they deem undesirable, while they consistently avoid use of such methods at all when they self identify with the protesting group.
That's what's being referred to
It's not overt kkk or Nazi shit, it's the subtle underlying racism that makes them shoot tear gas on the first day into a group of entirely peaceful people, which then result in the escalation to this extreme violence we now see.
It's a well established fact that the police are the source of escalation in many cases, choosing to attack the whole instead of seeking to address the problematic few.
The cops even send in fake protesters to engage in violence so they can then attack the protest. It was caught in Quebec on video, so I highly doubt it doesn't also happen in France where tensions and racism are far more significant. (See agent provocateur)
What is the EU missing out on if Threads never enters it though?
I don't believe Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok or Twitter were net gains for people. I don't see how Threads might be.
I do honestly believe that if all these services disappeared overnight we would live in a better world. I legit just don't want Threads to enter the EU, ever.
While I wholeheartedly agree that Facebook, Instagram, et al are net negatives for society, I think that it could still be a worrying for the EU if major companies and services simply decide not to do business in the EU. It will be interesting to see if this becomes a trend, if it's a one-off situation, or if it's only a temporary limitation.
EU doesn't decide what product to allow or not. It has regulation, and any decisions are according to those rules, the same for all companies. Which is my point. They have no vendetta against Meta, as evidenced by Facebook and Instagram working fine in EU.
It seems pretty obvious that it's no more dodgy than any other app they have. Despite people crying loudly about how untrue it is and how unfair it is when sites block people in the EU, the EU's regulations require a lot of work to comply with (even in the case where you are already complying with the intent of the regulations). Clearly here Meta's number one priority was getting this app out quickly. There are a ton of pretty basic features missing. If supporting a release in the EU required just weeks of work, I'd expect that they'd have chosen not to delay the release for that. Given the extra scrutiny that Meta is under, I'd put the amount of work required at more like months.
It's reusing Instagram. Instagram is GDPR compliant yet, threads isn't. That tells me they added extra stuff that Instagram doesn't have by default. More dodgy than other apps. And considering how long it takes for anything to happen they could have released and fixed minor unknown issues. The fact they haven't seems they think what they've added is dodgy enough for major fines.
Threads will follow the usual tech trends. It will be enjoyable for users, and Meta will run it at a loss to try to defeat Twitter. If they succeed, they will eventually make it worse for uses to woo advertisers, and then when the advertisers and users are both captured, they will make it awful for both groups in order to maximize their own profit. It will become “enshittified.”
I figured Meta released threads now cause of the 2024 US elections: twitter has reached dead wood status for corporate/political/msm media, facebook hasn't learned its lesson in the eyes of lobbyists (no touch), forget tiktok cause of 'china misinformation incoming', streaming had it's run, Fox lost its main character (and a lawsuit) and nobody watches cable anymore. So where's that sweet $15B in campaign ad funds going?? Threads is being pitched as fresh and an alternative to twitter as well as "separate to FB"...so logical to release now as that the $15B flood gates open around Sep/Oct. I can already see those marketing agencies pivoting with a sigh on not spending it on twitter in a few months. But we'll see if this plays out by then.
Whoever thought something good and user-first would come out of this wannabe Twitter killer is completely naive.
I expect that federation won't last and there's 2 things that can happen, either Meta decides it's not worth it, or they will find a way to draw out most of federated users and then deal a killing blow to the fediverse.
I was skeptical about being against Meta's Twitter being federated, but now I am totally in favor of it being banned by most instances.