Threads or rather Threats

This is Facebook, or rather now known as Meta, showing us at every turn that there's always a way to go lower. Threads, touted as a competitor to Twitter, is also available in Singapore and out of curiosity, I pressed the button.

I downloaded the application and with a single button press, I copied my Instagram account's profile settings to Threads. I don't have a personal Instagram, I use it for selling my paintings, so I have an account on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and now Threads under my artist name Art Sai Suo (to sound grandiose). I'm not complaining, since I've sold quite a lot of paintings, without ever having to invest a penny into paid advertisements, so these platforms have worked for me so far. Interestingly, I particularly like Instagram, for paintings, which is a highly visual genre, that platform fits very well and the story, reels, and other features have been cleverly designed.

I work with many small enterprises who have successfully built their businesses on Instagram or TikTok, or who get their sales directly from there, or have been able to build a community around their business. I worked with an Iranian girl who prints her graphics and paintings on tote bags and sells them on Instagram to such an extent that this is now her full-time job, she makes a living from it. Her breakthrough came when an Iranian celebrity influencer liked her work, shared it a few times, from there she got tens of thousands of followers, and several hundred regular customers. She also doesn't spend on paid ads, so it's undeniable that social media works for her too.

A Pakistani lady, with whom we worked in the incubation program, has illiterate women from poor villages make her own designed scented candles, which - again with the help of Instagram - she sells in larger cities in Pakistan, without having to open a physical store or having to peddle the candles on her back like in the pre-internet days. She also makes a living from this business, it supports her.

The third example is a Nigerian student from our university, who graduated last year and applied for the master's program with a project that collects stories and tales from Nigerian villages and remote areas, written by locals or spreading by word of mouth, and tries to sell these to film studios and scriptwriters. This business has not yet reached profitability, but with the help of Instagram (and Facebook), she built a community of several thousand people, primarily gathering around her African writers who would like to publish their writings, their stories. While she did physically travel to Nigerian villages in addition to online solutions, social media was very strong for her as well.

So before I start criticizing the new app, I wanted to show the other side of the coin.

Over the past two days, I occasionally looked at Threads. Sometimes I posted a painting, but mostly I watched how and for what others use the platform. In my judgment, the whole thing is closely linked to Instagram, because my friends from there kept appearing, and clearly, the system suggests their friends from there to follow, so you practically duplicate your Instagram community. Since Threads was touted as a Twitter-like microblog application, short text messages are much more common than pictures, and most messages were about "well, I'll check this out too, let's see what happens here".

So it's like joining a party. Influencers immediately jumped on it. Like water in a vessel, or even more so like air into a vacuum, these people virtually rush in and push their content on any platform that's given to them.

"Follow me now before I become famous" - writes a young Asian girl. She notes that she doesn't understand why everyone's asking, she doesn't have an OF. It takes a while before I realize she's talking about OnlyFans. I think she'll have one soon.

A Canadian-Asian stand-up comedian noted:

"Another app, I download it, because I didn't know what I was missing. Another app. Send a few more, I'll download those too, these really fill a gap."

But she's there, she downloaded it, and she's also posting her stuff.

About the interface itself, I can't say too much. You can send short text messages and upload pictures, videos, kind of like on Twitter. It's not (yet) varied with Lists, or Instagram-like Reels, it's as simple as a stick, and I consider this a benefit for now.

Since it automatically transfers Instagram followers, followers started to increase on their own, but I think among these there are no new ones, but the platform reconnects us from Instagram.

And then comes the twist. You came in, looked around, and let's say you decide that thanks, that's enough so I would now close this. And then it turns out that you can get in, but there's no handle on the door on the way out. Like in some horror movie.

The situation is that if you register for Threads, you can only delete yourself if you also delete your Instagram account.

Now seriously, what the hell.

That's an easy way to gain 10 million users in two days, as 10 million users can easily come in two days from the billion Meta users (the critical mass is there even without Europe). But as in some war movie, the Nazis slam the door shut on those entering. They're taking your data again, if you uploaded something it will stay there (on their servers), and you can only leave if you give up your Instagram account too.

This is exactly how to treat users in line with its reputation, one might say true to the brand. Meta created Threads with the intention of sneaking into the market gap punched by Elon Musk, but could only offer itself. It starts exactly with what could roughly be expected from it... the sneaky, underhand data theft.