Threads has become worse over time due to a series of anti-user policy decisions (no news/politics) and a very weird Discover algorithm that strongly incentivizes clickbait (and said feed is the default on the app and cannot be changed)
Threads only fed me straight up celebrity posts, despite having absolutely zero interest in that, when I signed up back when it was new. I can't imagine how much worse it is now.
So by default it will show you popular accounts which is unsurprisingly celebrities. But you just need to not engage with them and follow the people and topics you are interested in.
Once you do the algorithm is TikTok style in its sensitivity i.e. very.
I strongly disagree that if I, a European living in Asia, make a new social networking account it should assume that the things I'm interested in are American celebrities. Which is what happened on Threads. That's a dumb design decision that made me bounce out immediately.
A simple, privacy preserving solution: ask me! When I sign up, offer broad categories like art, tech, sports, celebrities etc. don't put everyone into one "probably likes celebrity gossip" box on signup.
But it's even worse than that. I already have an Instagram account! They know there that I like art, tech, webcomics, music. I know that's all shared with Threads even if I'd rather it wasn't. But my feed is still filled with celeb trash.
> how you separate things like “I’m concerned about my individual rights” from politics?
It's worse than that. You end up with lesbians posting about their girlfriends or small business owners posting a meme about a regulation they have to comply with and then getting blocked for politics if their tribe is the outgroup.
What you really need is for people to not be so intolerant of the other tribe being the other tribe.
Tolerance indeed means tolerating the intolerant as well, otherwise it's just another name for intolerance. It's clear we completely forgot that in our polarised world.
That should be the norm everywhere but one tribe's entire identity is being intolprant of people and things that ultimately have zero effect on them or anyone.
a) Given what happened with X during the election, Meta unquestionably made the right call with Threads. If you want news/politics then simply follow your desired journalists. But forcing it on people who don't want it is not making the world better. It's just allowing bad actors a clear vector on how to make it worse.
b) You can switch to the chronological feed which is much better. But as you say you can't make it the default.
I'm not sure what you're alluding to regarding what happened on X during the election. If anything 2024 was smoother (very surprisingly) than what happened in 2020 even when Twitter had a Trust and Safety team, mostly because the election was not contested this time.
Right wing accounts were heavily pushed in the later stages of the election.
I manage a number of business X accounts which are publish only and all switched to showing right-wing politicians, pundits and extensive amounts of Elon Musk. I created a new account to check and same thing. Even though when I selected interests I specifically chose non-political topics.
For me it was very clear then that whether it's Musk or Zuckerberg no one should have the ability to push political content.
It is true that Elon pushed right-wing accounts algorithmically (and is one of the reasons for the exodus to Bluesky), but "no politics ever" as a neutral content moderation stance to counter that factor makes it impossible for a social network to show what's happening now in the world and will make people go elsewhere for the information gap.
No political content ever is a community growth stance and business strategy.
It is the right call, by frikking far.
There are a 3-4 horsemen of the apocalypse for online communities. The first two are most definitely politics and religion.
If these two topics are allowed on your forum, you are pretty much done. Flame wars, harassment, brigades etc. are going to be the highest you can expect.
This is going to force you into high amounts of comment removals and bans. The velocity of action, and anger of your users will mean that you can no longer communicate the rationale for your bans, or maintain transparency.
On top of this, you will start to attract groups who will want to use your community for astroturfing, or for targeting. So now you have to deal with the worst kind of adversarial behavior.
Getting rid of politics, is just simply better for the product.
I will also argue that there should be such product experiments conducted in the economy. We already have a multitude of platforms where we can discuss politics.
The problem is that the right has largely moved politics into a cultural space. When you can't talk about being trans or being gay is that really politics? Self-identity isn't a political position, but it has been forced to be one, as those people are under constant attack.
In addition, they're the "out group", so they will actually be targeted. Certainly, nobody cares if you post your girlfriend, but if you post your boyfriend now it has become political.
Such rules aren't equal.
It's become a meme, but there's some truth to it. There're two genders, man and political. There're two sexual orientations, straight and political. There're two races, white and political.
"Material Reality" is not so, that's simply your opinion, and a rather anti-science one. We've known about the divide of gender and sex for a while, and our notions of gender are almost entirely socially constructed. That's why some people are able to live their life, convincingly and without suspicion, as the other gender.
And, to be clear, the vast majority of rape is performed by heterosexual men who are not trans. Trans people are an incredibly small amount of the population. They're merely a scapegoat, because they're "weird" or "gross" or "perverted". It's nothing new, it's the same things people said about homosexuals.
There's no forcefield around women's restrooms, for instance. One does not need to take 5 years of hormone therapy and surgery to walk into the women's restroom and sexually assault someone. Men already do that, right now, and in MUCH greater numbers.
Also, as a sidenote, these TERFy articles and such should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Typically, when attacking minorities the strategy is to take aim at vulnerable populations, usually women and children. When homosexuality was breaking the mainstream, the main concern was pedophilia, because that's how you harm minorities. Naturally, any aim at transgender people will do it from the lense of "protecting women". Never mind that trans women are already at high-risk of sexual assault.
None of this means I think people AMAB should be allowed in women's prisons. But you have to understand, for people who are transgender women, if they go to men's prisons, they WILL be raped. Without a doubt and with no exceptions.
The problem isn't as simple as conservative pundits would like you to believe. Women don't want burly, masculine trans men in their restrooms either, for example, which would be the end result of a lot of conservative policy.
Its getting there. They just need to allow replying back into the fediverse. But making it all opt in kinda has limited how many people use it. Perhaps that was intentional due to infrastructure needed and potentially overwhelming the fediverse. Or its just their way to say "we tried!"
The problem with Threads is, in my opinion, lack of funny people. it won’t be able to attract those users because what they usually post is questionable at best. And without it, it will always feel too sterile.
From what I can see, bsky mostly consists of rebels. And since users flock where everyone else is, it will be an uphill battle for them to get Twitter’s userbase.