Hey, and welcome to What Future. I am your host, Joshua Zapolski, and today on the show, we've got very important things to talk about. We've got very present, recent, shocking, upsetting, thrilling things to discuss, and of course talking about what's going on with Elon Muskin, Mark Zuckerberg and social media online. Yeah, there's a lot happening. There's a lot going on out there. There's a whole new landscape, and I wanted to get the world's foremost expert into the show to talk about it.
So we dialed up our friend Casey Newton, who is an absolute genius and scoop machine, you might say, when it comes to social media and frankly lots of other things, and I just needed to talk to him. I had to get him here and figure out what the hell was going on. So let's get into it. Casey, thank you for coming back on the podcast.
It's my sincere pleasure. Thank you for having me, josh I love that. Just be generous as always.
Yeah, okay, anyhow, really quickly, we're going to talk about what we need to talk about, which is threads. Yeah, but before that, I was telling Jenna a story and I felt I need to finish it, and you should hear it too, because you deserve it. I went to a ear nose and threads specialist today and long and long the shirt, I got a probe into that they put up my nose that went into like my throat. She's like, this will feel a little uncomfortable, and I was like, please take that out of my nose.
Please take that out of my nose, Please take it out of my nose.
It was supremely uncomfortable, and she was just like jerking it around in there, like snaking it around. Fucking anyhow, just that was the experience I had before the podcast. So I want you to know I'm in a pretty fragile state right now.
That sounds terrible.
What's what's the what's the prognosis for you have a deviated septum? No shit, Sherlock, I have a huge nose with a bump in it. So she I was like, She's like, well, you do have a little bit of a deviated septim. I'm like, really, I didn't know that by looking at my face. It's like, you didn't need to go all the way into my mouth with the
probe to know that. I have a deviated She's like, anyhow, whatever, this the the prognosis is, I need to probably get some stuff done to my nose to make it more beautiful and more less Jewish.
No rhinoplastic, rhino plastic.
She's like, we can like clear, we can make it more clear in which is basically what I want because I can't really like breathe through it. So anyhow, so I'm excited about getting some elective surgery. Maybe, I guess because they're like, you don't need to, but you'll be more comfortable.
Yeah, that sounds great.
Speaking of things going up your nose, Elon Musk recently tweeted that he sorry, did he and Mark say? He actually tweeted that he and Mark Zuckerberg should have an actual penis measuring contest?
Is this correct? Yeah, that's right, that's where we're at. I'm sure he was sober when he.
When he hits Yeah, that gome famously sober Elon, famously sober and normal person, Elon Musk. Okay, let's back up. Let's start at the beginning. Yeah, the year is nineteen eighty five and Microsoft is just introduced as DAWs. No, sorry, I'm sorry, I'm like also got like no sleep last night, so I'm going to really rare I'm going a rare place.
Because of your nose or because of something else. Oh, I don't know.
Just everyone's just life, just the press years of life, this life.
Yeah, all those loose things in.
Your house because yeah, and also my air conditioner is not working in here, so it's very hot, disagreed when it rains the poors. It's been pouring here actually in New York. So so well.
There you go.
For the listener who listens to the show but doesn't know what's going on on social media, which has got to be like one weird guy who accidentally subscribed to this. But can you just set up a little bit about what has just happened in the world of social media, just like in terms of I'll just say Facebook has launched a new product called Threads. Can you just talk a little bit about life? Yeah, what threads is and where it came from.
Yeah, Threads is a Twitter clone that was created to destroy Twitter.
No, not a clone. They're like, it's not a clone. It just looks it works exactly the same.
Yeah, they've said it's not a clone. It is a clone, And within three days that had one hundred million users, and so you.
Know, real quickly, sorry, real quickly, what are the active users of Twitter?
Number wise? So it's very hard to say because the I lost so many users this the year and they don't report numbers publicly anymore. But let's assume it's between two and three hundred million. Okay, so in five days?
Is it Threads, which is a Twitter clone that Facebook has introduced, has a third of the audience of Twitter, which has been in business for like seventeen years or something.
Yeah, that's right, all right, now, now we should say this number is the one hundred million for Threads is like essentially the number of people who've created an account and downloaded the app. The Twitter number is sort of active users, so it remains to be seen about hundred million how many of them are still using it in thirty days. But I think odds are good that this thing is going to be legit.
Right, So so Mark Zuckerberg and who is the head of Instagram, Adam Mussiri.
Odam A Siri?
Yeap, Yeah, they're like Twitter is being run awfully by Elon Musk, and we could just maybe turn on a Twitter cloned and then like extinguish Twitter.
Is that the idea? Do you think for threads? Yeah? Basically? So, Look, you know, it did not take long after Elon Musk took over Twitter in October of last year to realize that he was tanking it right. Every single decision he made was worse than the one that came before it. And so by December, the folks inside Facebook are saying, should we maybe just take another run at this? Because of course they had tried over the years a lot of different things to compete with Twitter, none of them
had really taken off. But because Elon Musk was alienating so many at Twitter users, all of a sudden it looked like there might be this real opportunity. So they got to work in it in December, and we finally saw the fruits of their labor this month.
Yeah, which is like pretty much like Twitter, Yeah, except the people who are popular on there are people who are historically popular for not talking and like looking like something or doing something that you look at because like it basically pourted Instagram. It's like it's connected to I think it's worth saying, yeah, And this is a brilliant strategy on their part. If there was anything in the
Facebook universe. It felt like it was like, you know, if you've got Twitter on your home screen right next to it, there's gonna be a thing you're bouncing over to. Probably it's Instagram, right, which is a far more popular, far more used social network. I mean, it's got like a billion users, more over a billion, over a billionisers, but it's obviously a photo and now video sharing app primarily. I have already patted myself on the back on Threads. I will pat myself on the back oh my podcast.
I wrote for a thing of The New Yorker about how Twitter sucked. Actually it's amazing because I went and reread it and it's like everything that sucked about Twitter in twenty sixteen under Jack Dorsey. It's the same stuff that sucks under Elon Musk, but it's like way super duper magnified. It's like, yeah, you know, it's like harassment and like bad moderation and confusing policies and a product that doesn't really work that well. It's like exactly the
same shit. And in that piece, I was like, you know, if Instagram wanted to like probably immediately kill Twitter, they could just make a text based version of Instagram or whatever, and it's like literally what they were like, Hey, we have a cool social network that everybody's staring at all the time.
So yes, that's just I think because look at the threads product today. If they have rolled it out in twenty nineteen, you and I would be rolling our eyes out of the back of our heads. You would have said, this is the least. We would say, They're not even trying this thing?
Is it?
One? I owte a different than Twitter? It is dead on arrival? Correct? What changed? Is Twitter tanks so hard that a bear bones copy of it run By like a sort of more competence organization, just instantly rocketed into superstartup, right it is? I mean there are some differences. We should say.
It does not yet present a chronological feed, which is the business for Twitter for most users.
I think, not for most, but for for a lot of die hard users. It is important to see a reverse cod.
Feed for the most important ones, for the ten percent of people who create ninety percent of the content on Twitter, the chronological feed is somewhat important. True, But they say Facebook says it's coming Mata or whatever they're called these days, and also Mark Zuckerberg posts on it, which is a
thing that he's not. He only has done one post in like eleven years or something on twit, and it was the Spider Man pointing at each other meme, which is like kind of I mean, poking the bowl or whatever. Whatever that's saying, is like, if you don't want to make someone think that you've copied their product, I would, personally, if I copy someone's product, I would not post on their product with a thing that's like a copy of a thing pointing to the thing that is the real thing.
I mean, that's, you know, right, one man's opinion. I mean, look, I think the meme was funny, but also they are odd thread saying we're not trying to closee Twitter, and then you use the Spider Man meme that means, oh, look, these two things are the same, so you kind of got to pick one. Yes, exactly, No, That's what I'm saying.
It's like if there is ever a court case, which there won't be, because like, honestly, you can't really make an argument that Twitter does anything particularly special at this point, Like it's a feed of words, which is basically every blog in the world. Like, if you really want to
get down to it. It's they're small blogs. It's a micro blog, which is exactly what it would have been known as like ten years ago, and like that's not really you can't really trademark that shit at this point, you know.
No. Also, do you know how many patents on Facebook has around social networks and feeds and stuff? Like they both the ones they filed on the ones they've bought, like they're going to win that fight if it comes to court, which, as you point out, it's not.
They're like, oh, do you want us to have the conversation about who has more patents on like words on a screen or whatever the fuck it is? Yeah, So Twitter's just so fucking bad and gross and depressing and full of like Nazis and like Elon Musk fanboys and whatever. Like I hardly ever look at it. I was messing around the Blue Sky when it came out when I got I mean you were. I think I might have
bullied you about using Blue Sky or something. Matt masted on the it was what I bullied you about using one of the wanna be social networks.
I think it is masted On. Look, I've been I've been using all of them. It's very important to me that something to replace Twitter, because Twitter is not just a source of enjoyment for me, it's like part of how I run my business is by like posting things in public to try to get people to click on
them and maybe pay the money. So I was going to be flogging all of these things, right, and you know Blue sky had its moment, but it just didn't move, you know, the sort of recurring theme of all these things. They just didn't move fast enough. And then you know, along comes Meta.
Yeah, I mean blue skuy has like one hundred and fift thousand users, a hundred fifty thousand or something like that. It's massed on has millions, but it's like it's just a it's not like a centrally managed thing. It just feels like, you don't know what the hell. It's very hard to get started un masted on, Like just in terms of usability, right, I think like what Threads has done, besides having a built in social media ready audience, like
the audience was sitting there. It's like you already are communicating probably every day with people on their other platform in that fashion. So it's just fewer pictures and more talking, you know, yeah, like I don't want to like put the cart before the horse. I know everybody's like, oh, Twitter's gonna rally or whatever, but like I don't feel.
No, wait, everybody is saying, like I feel.
Like people I have seen people say, oh, it's the early days, you know, Well that's true. You know it's going to even out. People be less excited because this happens has happened with all that other stuff we were just talking about, Like people are like, oh my god, like Blue Sky, there's the fucking articles in the New York Times about it. There's like fifty thousand people signed up for it, Like you know, it's like then it died down and everybody's like, Okay, well to Twitter, I guess.
But this is like I feel like a lot of the people that I want to follow and know and care about listening to on social media are already there. Yes, it's harder to find them at this point, but they're there. And it's like, yeah, it's not run by Elon Musk. Which this is the weirdest thing of all of this is like somehow Mark Zuckerberg has become like he looks good in this scenario, which is unheard of. For him unheard of.
Basically, Yeah, there's been a real sort of reversal perception. And I think it just speaks to the fact that for all of the crap that people gave Twitter over the years, much of it justified. People really did love the role that it played, right, They wanted something to play that role. Now when it started to go walkie, they missed it. And then Zuckerberg comes along and says I can do it. And the fact that he happens to be in this hugely entertaining personal feed with Musk
just makes it all the better. Yeah, there's something that you haven't brought up, Josh, that I think is super important, which is the rate limiting fiasco, because it actually explains a lot I think about how we got here.
Oh.
Yes, I'll be honest with you.
Yeah, I have been fairly tuned out from the rate limiting fiasco because, as I said, I have kind of abandon Twitter. Yeah, I mean I've caught a little bit of a bit I think for also for a lot of people listening, like it's fairly it's a fairly complicated little story.
Can you give us the narrative? Well, you know, the gist is that for a bunch of reasons. They decided that they were going to restrict people from viewing more than six hundred tweets in a day unless you payd elon Musk money. You can only look at six hundred tweets in a day, right, And that might sound like a lot, but you know, if you're spending fifteen or twenty minutes browsing, which I don't think is a crazy amount of time to be browsing a socia, just brows
while you're talking. I'll see if I can hit Okay, I want to see what happens. Yeah, just see if you can hit the limit. Go ahead, Yeah, see if you can hit the limit. And you know, you dip in and replies, you look at some profiles, all of a sudden, you've hit your six hundred limits. So you know, even in its decaying state, I would still have Twitter open on my desktop and just glance over it occasionally to see if there was some piece of breaking news
or whatever. When the rate limiting thing happened, roughly a week from the time that we're recording this ago, it just stopped scrolling. New tweets stopped loading. You just got a message that said you've exceeded your rate limit, so it became literally worthless in the sense you couldn't even see anything that was happening there. So you know, earlier we were talking about how news junkies want that chronological feet because they want to know what's happening. Right the
second Twitter actually stopped serving that purpose. So that was the moment that Meta saw and when they saw that, they said, we're going to accelerate the launch of threads by a week because we know that this is our time to strike. So they actually did something really savvy, which is they seized on the absurd opportunity that Elon Muskin created for them.
Right, Yeah, I mean, I'm just first off, I'm scrolling Twitter, and I honestly I'm impressed that people continue to post on here.
I have to say, like, I understand there's in it's disgusting, like like I have posted a physic It's like watching people smoke. That's how I feel about it.
Actually, I did not post the last episode of the show I've at like on Twitter, I will probably post this, but then I'm kind of like maybe, but like i'd probably get better engagement on threads where I have, like I don't know, seven thousand followers or something like not nearly as many, but like they're actually interacting with me and seeing my content.
I'm just dying to get to this rate limit.
Do you think he did the rate limiting because like he's not paying his like server bills and like they don't have enough capacity.
I mean, they have been radically reducing their investment in just kind of the basic infrastructure that you need to run the site. So they went from I believe it was three data centers down to two. They may be trying to go to one, you know, a platform or my newsletter, we published a story of a month or so ago that they hadn't been paying their Google Cloud Dell.
That has now been resolved. But yes, I mean I do think that there is a chance that that is the case, and we're we're actually still reporting that story out, so you know, if you're a platform subscriber, hopefully you'll learn more about that soon.
Oh well, I'm very I'm very interested to learn more about all the stupid things that are happy at Twitter. I mean, is there is there what's the latest, like what's the latest piece of reporting you've done on this? Like the what's the or I don't know if you can talk about something you're working on now, but I'm curious, like, yeah, yeah, I don't know if you're talking anybody inside of Twitter, Like what if there's been a reaction there, I feel like you probably might be.
What I can say is just that chaos continues to rain. You know, they have this new CEO, Linda Yakarino, who sort of made a big show of saying, Hey, I'm here to make this website, say for brands, and we're going to get this advertising engine spun up again. And then it was like a week later that the rate limiting thing happened, and so all of a sudden, you know, if you're an advertiser, like you, your reachs ben dramatically reduced.
Right, You're like, oh, so you stop showing stuff after six hundred views of content? Like that's actually on that note, that's the kind of like worst website in the world doesn't do that. You know, it might break, I guess if it gets over capacity, but exactly, you know, I mean like that basically would kill ad viewability for a lot of people, right, I mean absolutely yeah. I actually kind of didn't contemplate how insane the rate limiting thing
is it's like it's so bizarro. It's just such a crazy, weird move. I mean, at this point it kind of feels like, and I don't know if you have any insight on this or thoughts, but like, is Elilmo was just trying to do it in like does he just want to do value it so much that he can like get some kind of like right off, like some tax right off for it.
So there's this There is this pretty good theory. There's a reporter, William Cohen at Puck who's written pretty persuasively about this that it does seem like, whether intentionally or not, that Twitter is cruising for a bankruptcy in part because it is simply not paying a lot of its debts. Right, So at a certain point a handful of its creditors can come together and say, this guy isn't paying our debts, and we can essentially force them into an involuntary bankruptcy, right,
which sounds bad for Elon Musk. However, if it happens, the debt that he took on to a choir Twitter could possibly be reduced by something like thirteen billion dollars. Right, So, if Elon tanks it, he might wind up, you know, saving himself a cool thirteen billion.
Okay, maybe this is a naive question to ask, but wouldn't a some kind of the governing body that handles bankruptcies be able to look at his behavior and say, well, you didn't actually try to run the company properly, like you basically decided to bankrupt it. I mean, can you because like you know what I mean, Like it seems like there'd be a law against people going like I ran my business bad on purpose, so I could bankrupt it and get out of a tax bill or whatever,
get out of my debt, paying my debt. Like people would do that all the time, I would imagine, Right.
I mean, you're you're right, And yet I feel like, unfortunately, we live in a society where there are almost no consequences for billionaires. I don't know, it's it's concerning, as Elon mus would say.
Right, and do you think the threads unfinished at that point, like when they decided to launch it, Like, do you think it was like, hey, we have an opportunity, he's really blown it. We have a product that's like good enough. Ye, do you feel like it's an unfinished product?
Right? Now, yeah, I think they want to spend another week polishing it, and there was probably some stuff that might have gotten added to the product. But now they're just spending all their time trying to keep the site afloat because they did not expect to have one hundred million dollars I'm sorry, one hundred million users in three days. You don't think they did, no, but it was it was basically ready, you know. I just think it would have come out, you know, maybe a week.
Later, right, Like, because you can't it's very hard to find peoplele on. It's very hard to follow people. It keeps it really wants me to follow Demi Levado like more than anything, do it.
I'll tell you.
One of the things about Threads that has been fascinating has exposed how much like vapidity there is amongst people who post on Instagram. Like, the stuff I'm seeing on Threads is some of the all time worst posting that I've ever seen in like in my life.
Yeah, I've seen many varieties of bad posts, but the one that sticks with me is I keep seeing these accounts that have of like that include the word betch in their name, like Bitch with E, which was like something that like millennial women would say in the early two thousands, and I guess you know, they created these
Instagram accounts. It's like dumb betch and they post this like you know, relatable like jokes like and for women, and that's fine on Instagram, but you put it on something like Twitter, and you just could not ridge harder.
No, no, no, no, no, it's it's it's there's a kind of avalanche of crazy shit that I'm seeing. First off, on day one it was especially chaotic because I hadn't really followed them. It definitely is like picking up on who I'm following and then like giving me more of that stuff. But on day one it was just like, hey, we turned on all the stuff for you, like just
check out what's coming out from all over threads. And it was like, you know, one thing was like Gary Vee doing some inspirational stuff about hustling, hustle culture, and then it was like a fucking f one thing.
You know, it's like what's your who's your favorite f one racer?
And then and then it's like accounts like you're like fuck Jerry and like the Betch the Betch accounts that are like trying to do their mean thing. They're trying, like and it's so it's like the most desperate shit because they like showed up and they're like, oh shit, I only have like forty thousand followers, and on Instagram, I have like forty million followers, and they're like the shit. Like hype Beasts, hype Piece is the one that gets
under my skin the most. To be honest with you, hype Piast, which is a just if you don't if you're listening, you don't know. HiPE Piece is a brand that covers streetwear. It's on the cutting edge of fashion culture. It is like probably actually in the last like ten or you know, fifteen years, one of the most important like blogs that exists because they kind of captured this moment in streetwear that happened that kind of when it
took over the fashion industry. And they are posting shit and I don't even know if the people at hype beests know that they're posting this. They're posting shit on threads like what did you have for breakfast?
Yes?
Do you pour the milk in first or the or the cereal first? And I'm like, I'm like, this is not only is it not aligned with your shit at all, Like just absolutely out of alignment with what you do. But it is like the worst, dumbest, lamest, most boring posting I've ever seen.
Yeah, here's what's going on. There is a there's a land rush going on. There's a gold rush. There's a gold rush on a land that because people know that if you can get fast early on a site like this, you'll have that big follower account forever. And so you have these people that are just going hogwild, you know, like the Nike account yesterday I saw this was just like sort of served up to me. I do not follow Ikey, and it just posted a drop your favorite shoe.
And this is like nobody, like, who's gonna just read like, you know, five hundred replies about favorite shoes.
But they're fucking people are replying like like the uh, look at the hype beest thing, the hype beast thing. God, look at the hype I want to look at that. I want to look at the replies to this. I screenshot in one and then I reposted the other because I didn't want to I didn't want to amplify them anymore. Yeah, mourning, how do you like your eggs eight hundred and thirteen this was yesterday, eight hundred thirty replies, twelve hundred and
fifty one likes. Someone fucking hit like on that no on morning Thread or cerial First or milk First, eleven hundred and eighty four replies, fifteen hundred and forty five likes. And you know what, the Highbe's account six hundred and eleven thousand followers, they're crushing. They're doing very well for themselves right now.
But if you look at the ratios back, because they do have all those followers, and yet three hours ago they posted quote not even eleven am here in NYC and I'm already thinking about lunch lmao.
Yeah, and that's only got eight hundred likes. So you know, I'll tell you one thing, and this is true of all of these new social networks. It has made me re evaluate my existence on the Internet. Like I'm kind of like, you know, like we spent I think you're probably the same way. You spent probably most of your
time building your following on the Twitter. Yeah, because that's where the journalists talk like, that's where you post your story, that's where the action was, right, Like for a long time, like if you had a great scoop or if you wanted to talk to like other people in the media who you wanted to see your story or just people who were media junkies.
Twitter's the place, right, that's just like where they go.
Yeah, and now it's like again, the engagement's actually way better on almost all of these other social networks. But I'm like, I'm like, do I even want to? And you know, maybe I'm speaking from a very rare position, like you know, I probably don't need to necessarily have a huge social media following, though my producers at the show would definitely say otherwise.
And when do you say you're speaking from a special position do you mean as someone with a.
Dev I mean it's someone who has been probed today and has a deviate to abdom you know, it's funny when but after the probe and I was like, I think, like that helped a little bit, Like maybe I should just be probing. Maybe that's what I need in my life. No, Like I'm like at a point I think in my career and with what I do, like I I think I can just do what I do and not have to worry too much about like whether somebody saw like my story.
Yeah, you're you're above you know you don't need these unwashed me.
I'm in the smoky, the leather chair filled smoke smoke filled rooms where the I'm in the room where it happens currently.
So yeah, yeah, Peter TiAl doesn't post, and either does Dosh Dapolski. Okay, guys, they made it.
Yeah that's right, we don't. And when we meet for when we meet for our special club of very important people, for.
Your infusions of twink blood. Yeah, it's so great not posting, isn't it. God, I'd love to.
I would love to spend even a little bit of time with Peter Teal would be so fucking weird.
He loves talking to I don't think he'd do it. I don't think you'd do it.
But hey, Jenna, can you put on the list after our FK Junior and uh Liver the liver Man? Is that with the guy the guy we were talking about last week? Can you have add Peter Teal to the podcast bookiet list? Thank you anyhow? Yeah, So it's kind of like it's interesting, but like, I don't know how many followers do you have on threads?
And this is not.
I'm not trying to I'm not trying to do a dick measuring competition like on Moscow.
Yeah, well, well let me just whip this out, John, Yeah, it out. I've got a twenty six thousand. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.
But I'm kind of like, do I want to put and this is I think an interesting question for a lot of people actually, And I feel like Twitter and tell me a few senses or feeling at all. The Twitter has accelerated this feeling of insane fatigue, social media fatigue, and like this idea of like do I need to be looking at this shit? And do I want to be looking at this shit? And like is it healthy
or is it doing anything for me? My feeling has been like over the last couple of years, but especially since Elon took over Twitter, I'm like, I think I just don't I can just not look at it and it's okay, Like I'm okay, Well.
I think you're getting at something real. Which is that a lot of the appeal of social networks, particularly new social networks, it is they are a place where people can build status and clout. You can't establish yourself, you can gain a reputation for something. Maybe that even turns to money for you if you associate it with some
sort of business. Right. And then there are other people and let's we could, for example, just call them like people in their forties who have already achieved their status and their clout and so they don't need to race it age us. But they feel bad because they know that it is actually cool to participate in new social networks. So they just feel the spiritual exhaustion of not needing to participate, but realize that not participating indicates that they've given up on their lives.
You think it's an age thing, that's interesting. I think it's more like a amount of time I've been blanched in social media. I feel like I've been I feel like, you know, you you put the they put someone put the spinach in.
You know it.
It's a big full Yeah, it's a huge amount of spinach, and then it's just been in the water for a pretty long time and now there's just one little tiny speck of spinach in there. That's how I've my feeling is about social media in general. And I don't I don't know if it's my age. Obviously, I've been doing it a long time. But I also think it's like social media doesn't feel like it's getting better and more interesting. It feels like it's getting less good and less interesting.
I mean, it's it's as good or it's as interesting as it ever was. I think it just sort of depends on you know, where are you in your life? What role is this play? Huh see?
I disagree with that because I think there's this general fatigue with like the amount of stuff that people have been getting in there, like in their diet generally.
Douch, No, you're insane. You're insane, Josh. One hundred million people didn't just download this app in three days because of their social media fatigue about account love the slop that's coming out. Okay, but you know that's a that's a qualified audience. Okay.
Do you know what I'm saying, Like, you're not. It's not one hundred million new it's not one hundred million new people. It's a hundred million people from Instagram. Okay, it's not they're not brand new. They didn't they didn't happen by Do you know what I'm saying.
Is that your standard that in order for me to prove that there is no social media fatigue a hundred million people who've never tried social media before in twenty twenty three after year.
I'm just saying like, and I'm not trying to agree with Elon Musk or anything here, by the way, I'm saying that, but.
You interesting ideas about western You have a big He's.
Got some interesting ideas. He's got some very interesting ideas, as do his followers. I'm saying that if you have an audience of one billion people, which is what I'm trying to do, You're like, hey, guys, do you want to try this new thing we're doing, and a hundred million people do try it, I'm not at impressed as if you are, like, here's a new thing that you have to sign up for. I think there is a difference. I mean, I'm just saying I believe there's a difference.
And I think that if you looked at the weight of new sign ups to threads versus people who came over from Instagram imported their account, it's probably like ninety nine percent people from Instagram.
I mean sure, But also like Meta launches new apps all the time and no one ever uses them. I mean this is the first hint that they have had in years.
No, it's true, But there again, I'm the agree I think they've done a masterful move here, and I agree that I don't think that like everybody's like fuck social media. And I'm not saying that the one hundred million number isn't significant because it is super significant. It's insane. I do think there is it is a perfect storm. I do think that a lot of the people who are on Twitter feel like it is degraded in quality. Plus, it's very easy if you already are on another social
network to get onto Threads. Like there's no waiting list, there's no fucking sign up for a weird It's literally like, hey, do you want to check this out? And like you hit a button and then you're on Threads. It literally imports your bio and your photo and everything, right, So
it's like very plug and play in that sense. So I think it's the test of time is what I'm sort of more talking about with Threads, like will it become a thriving, enjoyable social media experience, Like I think we can all argue for the most part that Instagram has has found a way to become for the most part, an enjoyable social media experience, even in the face of all this bullshit. TikTok clearly an enjoyable social media experience, even in the face of all this bullshit, there's not
a lot Snapchat, I guess still has an audience. Twitter is fucking now. Twitter's on its way out one way or another. I think it's not going to come back. I don't think it comes back. But does Threads become does it actually become like a new Twitter?
Well, you know, I've written in the past about this idea of like pop up social networks, which are kind of like pop up restaurants in your neighborhood, where basically they're serving the same ingredients you've had at other places, but because it's new and it's shiny, the food flock there and they rave about it on Yelp, and for like ten minutes, it seems like the biggest deal in the world. But then eventually everyone goes back to the restaurants that they used to hear at, and that was
a case of like and l and mastedon. Yes, exactly, you know. So, But here's the thing, Like, I don't think Threads is the crow neut because it already has this critical mass of users who actually wanted to succeed. Right Like when peeter Elo came along, we already had working social networks. There wasn't this hunger for a replacement for any of them, and so they kind of faded away. Twitter is in a literal dust spiral. You can only look at it like fifteen minutes a day before it explodes.
Who knows that the Apple will even load when you tap it on your phone. So we are just in a different world than we were in when those other networks launch. It's it's always risky to make a bet about what's going to happen to a social network on day four, But like, is there a chance that this thing has the juice? Yes, there is a chance.
For the first time ever, I want something that Facebook is doing to succeed, Like I'm actually liked. No, man, let's do it because it's it is God, I almost said tweeted again, what are we saying threaded? Is that what we're saying threatened? I don't think that works. That doesn't fit.
I posted.
I don't think that's good. I don't think that's what Masari wants. I don't think he likes that I think he's going to remove that. That's gonna be an instant removal. I threaded or posted a where the fuck I did. I was like, this is a real the enemy of my enemy is my friend situation, And I really do feel strongly. It's like such a strange sensation to be like, I want this to work pretty badly, Like I like Twitter when it was good, Like there were parts of
Twitter actually before the Nazis really went. I mean, they were always kind of going wild on Twitter, but they there was a period like you know, during the Trump era, at the beginning of Trump, it really got fucking bad on Twitter, like it was unfun. And I would say,
since then, it's been pretty unfun. Yeah, but before that, it was like a lot of fun, Like you could have a lot of fun on Twitter, and there's still pockets of it, Like I definitely want a place where like people are gonna make stupid, weird Internet jokes, Like I would say, the thing I miss most about looking at Twitter is people making fucking weird like drill shit. That's just you honestly can't make the joke in any
other way. It's just that particular forum, you know. Yeah, so I wanted to win, but like, also I hate myself because I know it means Mark Zuckerberg is gets more of my data and more of my time.
To me. This is like a there's like a two part equation. Okay, Like the first part of the equation is Twitter needs to die, like it just needs to completely disappear from like polite society. And that's step one. Step two is we will bring all of the criticism and all of the scrutiny to threads that we had previously been bringing into threads on all the other social net works. Like I truly believe there will be time.
I also think that MATTA has learned a lot of lessons from its previous five or six years of disasters, and so hopefully they'll be able to mitigate some of those problems. But like it's a let's just get the order of operations straight. Job one is to kill Twitter, right, yes, and I think pretty good jobs so far, amazing job.
But like obviously from an audience size, and I was gonna say, Zuckerberg posted this thing about how they haven't even done any like promotions yet, which I think is an interesting It's kind of like he's saying, like, you know, we need one hundred million just by turning it on. What would happen if we actually told other people about it, Like, you know, I think that's what happened.
Yeah, what would happen if we tried? Yeah, so what will happen? I think if they can get to the if they can get the rest of the Twitter people. But can you have a Twitter competitor or killer without the Nazis? I guess that's the ultimate question.
Yeah, I mean, you know, Instagram's community guidelines are actually much more restrictive than Twitter. So you know, as you've probably been wondering why you're not able to post whole on thought and the reason keeps getting keeps getting bounced, keeps getting flagged. Yeah yeah, well the reason is, you know, you can't post nudity on Instagram and so you can't post it on threads. So I mean, look, they make decisions I disagree with. They gave Rfki Junior his account
back just because he ran for president. So I'm sure there's gonna be problematic actors on there, but you know, it's it's gonna be much better, I think, than it was on Twitter.
So it's funny because I on on Blue Sky, I posted something about like we were there's some conversation going on about moderation, right, and it was like the Blue Sky people have been very like, weirdly cagy. They're good, I mean, they want to moderate the bad shit out of there, but they've been kind of cagy and careful about how they talk about it. And I'm like, I
was like, I don't understand. Like Instagram, which people fucking love, is like one of the craziest moderation situations I've ever experienced. Like you can literally like get your shit taken off of Instagram for like saying like putting the word dead in a post or something like it is. I mean I don't even mean in text, I mean like in an image, like if the word People like are crossing out words like in their posts because they don't want to get like dinged and have their shit pulled down.
And yet weirdly, it's a very enjoyable experience. Like I look at.
Instagram all the time, and I know, like, well, home, I can't see nud to you or how come I you know, can't hear people talking about like killing people or whatever. I'm like, Wow, this sucks my two favorite things nudity and murder threats.
You know.
Of course I don't follow a lot of political accounts on there. I fall some meme accounts, but like, yeah, it's fucking enjoyable, and it's like, maybe discourse doesn't have to be like this free speech shit is overrated basically.
Right, Well, that's basically what they've said is, you know, because all the journalists are sort of like, yay, a place to post our links and do journalism. And Adamisaria did this sort of widely uh discussed post where he said, we know there's gonna be journalism on here, but we're doing nothing to encourage it. We do not want to be like the throbbing heartbeat of the daily news cycle.
And honestly, I think that that is mostly just marketing, right, because they have no control over what people are posting, and people want to share news there. People are going to share news there, right. But I do think it speaks to the fact that they like the fact that news has become a much smaller part of their products over time, and they hope that continues.
You know. I mean, I think what he was saying in some way was more like a signal to like the market than than anything else. It's like, yeah, I don't, I don't see. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe they do this already. I don't know how much Meta is suppressing like news content or I don't know, are they down are they? Do you think they would go so far as to downrank journalists or to like suppress news links that are being widely shared?
Yeah, I mean so. One thing that they will absolutely just have to decide is what kind of weight are they going to give to links as they are shared? Right, some some networks are sort of treat those as neutral, and other networks say like no, like we want you to stay on the site, and so if it includes a link, we're going to show it less. So that is something that they could do. You know, it may be that this winds up not being a great place to share news. But you know, again us the news,
because I'm so far zero on that. I've been this whole NonStop pole posted just getting rejected. But yeah, I'm talking about the news, you know. But again, if I think that even though they say they don't want it to replace Twitter's function as kind of the like the newsroom of the world, I think if it became the
newsroom of the world. They would find a way to get excited about it, because at the end of the day, they want what everyone else wants, which is status and money, And if they can get status and money from being the world's newsroom, they will be the world's newsroom. Right.
Well, I mean, I think it seems to be trending, at least in the direction that it has the same basic functionality as Twitter. If you are a person who does news, like you can go on here and like post a news link and it doesn't like as far as I know, it's not like knocking them down a peg or something, and it seems like they're just links, right. I hear that there are like right wing people on it.
I have not seen any really. I went to ban or sorry not banned, to block some people who I did not definitely not want to see who are on it, like George Santos for instance, who I just I don't need to hear anything from him whatsoever.
Oh, really, you don't like a gay elected officials, Josh? I Uh, what I hate most is his gayness.
No.
I I love that he's gay. I hate everything else.
I'm a big, big on his a big fan of his being gay just not a fan of all the other stuff. He was simply just gay, that would be great, But he's so much more complex than that. And I think that's true of many in the community. Honestly, when you when you think about that, it's it's a divers and complex community of people who are you know, some people are gay, some people are gay, and a bunch
of other stuff like George Santos. No, but like but yeah, but like is it do you get a sense that like the truth social folks or the Twitter people are like flying over to like occupy their space or are they like, hey, soon we can have all of Twitter, which they don't realize how it will actually be.
Oh, I mean, well, the best was that some of Elon's minions, like the people who were falling all over themselves to suck up to Elon when he took over Twitter. There was kind of this question of how long will they be able to resist joining threads because it's clear that that's where the action is going to be. Yeah, and number one on that list was Jason Kalakano. Yeah, advisor to Elon, and Jason didn't even make it forty eight hours before he joined Threads to you know, take some patcha yeah.
So to make fun of Zuckerberg, but like you're here, You're here, you showed up.
Yeah yeah, yeah. So it's like even the people that are like Elon is, you know, he's mister business genius and he's gonna prove you all wrong. Even those people are ready to abandon ship. You know.
I'm loving I mean, I am loving that shit. I have to say from a from a crow eating perspective, it is a very very delicious meal to witness. All right, so we really quickly, we gotta we do have to wrap up. Although I am enjoying, I gotta say, Casey, it is. It is so fun to talk to you. It is just like you just a giggle f I love talking to you.
It's a good it is. Give me a.
Prediction, lay it out. Where do you see this all headed? Give me give me the year ahead for Threads and Twitter.
So I predict that at this time next year, Threads will be the biggest text based social network, and I think it will have largely supplanted the role that Twitter plays in the news ecosystem today. So that is my actual approsse.
Okay, you stand, you'll stand by you feeling good, you feeling good about that, you can stand by that prediction.
I think it just all the ingredients are in place and all of the right people want it to app. It would be one thing if only Meta wanted this, Like what Meta wants actually matters the least. What matters is that the user base want the fact that like you a person, you know, you've been very critical of Facebook. I've been very critical of Facebook. I talked to other reporters. They're all saying the same thing, which is, thank god
this thing is here. Yeah, those people who are who are the most likely to have said screw this whole thing, are all in. I think it wins.
It is very deranged. It is a little bit of a so so, okay, where is Twitter In a year from now.
Twitter is going to be like, here's the thing. The app will still exist. I think I'm not sure that I would confidently predict this, but I think there's a very good chance that it is bankrupt. And I think that a year from now Elon Musk is seriously exploring how to unwind his ownership of the app.
Yeah, I mean that checks out for sure. Yeah, I mean this all sounds right. To me, I have very little to disagree with. I feel like I don't know, I would be more sad. I guess, like, here's the thing. A part of me is just like realizes that recognizes that if we want to use a social media platform of some type, it's not I mean, I understand the whole like fetaverse and the masset On thing, and that's cool. Like if they can make it work, well I'm totally
into it and I'll keep posting there or whatever. But like I think we all acknowledge like whether it's Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, like one of these people that we probably wouldn't love to hang out with in person, wouldn't make you know, wouldn't make a best friend, and have nefarious, kind of shitty reasons for doing the business they do, are going to run the social network, whatever one it is, it's going to be
some person like that. So I feel like, you know, I'm kind of like, yeah, do I care if in this case, like I clearly don't care in the case of Instagram, Do I care in this case if like it's owned by Mark Zuckerberg versus Ela Muskin, Like, but we.
Haven't even talked about the fact that it's decentralized, which is the actual answer that, well, like, you're going to be able to set up your own server and you're going to be able to have your posts appear on threads even though Meta doesn't operate it.
They say that. They say that, and I think there's a common belief that they are doing that partially because if they basically make it a part of the fetiverse, right is what would happen. They can basically get away with doing whatever moderation they want. They say, Hey, no, you can the post here, you can set up your own server and your own rules and bob blah blah, and then they don't have to worry about being the arbiters of free speech or whatever on their own rock.
Which is a good answer to that problem, by the way, it's a great answer, and it's it's the one we're all looking for.
I think.
I also feel like, I don't know, it's a little bit like if nobody cares that much about the moderation, which I feel like it's possible, like maybe nobody really at this point will care that much. People care, like you don't hear the right wing people being like Instagram suppressing my I mean, Donald Trump Junior, I think did ye.
But I read about content moderation all the time. This is such a perfect all time case study because people are leaving Twitter because it did not have content moderation. Like the failure of content moderation on Twitter created the opportunity for threads. You got one hundred million US.
I mean, yeah, the idea that whatever, well, first off, I mean, it wasn't a free speech utopia. It was the speech that Elon Musk likes best, which is like weird, weirdly anti semitic and racist and like really.
Bad transphobic a lot of things.
Yeah, yeah, super transphobic, like just fucking weird bad, Like you could just not say shit, you know, if you're if I were the richest man in the world, if I if which I think he is now currently, I would simply not post my personal feelings about things on the Internet. I would just keep them to myself because I could just change those things. I could just literally buy the thing and get rid of it if I didn't like it. This is what we all think, but all the billionaires do wind up posting.
I think it's one of the only ways they can feel like Jos supposed to become a certain reson.
You saw the what do you drink for a hangover? Or what do you eat after a hangover? Asking for a friend or whatever. I'm sorry, dude, I'm you gotta get another fucking hobby. Like you do not need to be on social media. You're Jeff Bezos, like buy a country, like I don't know, like find something fun to do this chrassty you know what?
You know how that one episode of House of the Dragon, the like princesses like put on disguises and go mingle with the comedy folk like that, That's what Jeff Bezos was also kind of the plot of a lad and I now realize and it was also famous the plot of Aladdin. Yeah, I hope that the creators of House of Dragon answer for that anymore youth. Yes, seriously, they need to be brought to justice, you think.
Sorry, just to be clear, you think they like it because they get to mingle with the commoners.
Is that what you're saying? They want to feel somethdate, what's your a certain level of rich? You cannot feel anything anymore. There are no comps.
You could do whatever you want. There are no consequence to pay to feel something. They can get someone to make them feel. So I don't know, Man, that's interesting.
No, they want that little hit. It's it's the adrenaline rush them. I'm gonna go step out of the public square and maybe they're gonna throw egsit me, but maybe they'll think I'm really yes.
So man, it'd be so cool if they had something interesting to say. Imaginef they stepped out of the public square and said cool shit. Like it's kind of hard to imagine, right, Like like what like, man, the Ramones were great in nineteen seventy eight.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know because I guess I'm not them, but I would definitely say something like other than the trans people shouldn't exist or whatever the thing they came up with, like or should I drink? What should I eat after a hang for a hangover? Like I'm sorry, Like it's got to be some other thing to say. Yeah, anyhow, all right, I think we got to wrap up here. I think we've devolved into I don't know, I don't know what we've devolved into.
Casey.
As always, this has been absolutely delightful, so fun and educational. Yeah, and uh, you know, I got a lot of information, but it was presented in a way that was digestible and enjoyable. And I think like, that's one of your talents. You can just put you put it out there. But people are like, that's great.
I get it. I understand it. Casey made it. Casey made me understand I love it. I love what I do. It's you're the best. You'll have to come back.
Again in a year. Now, you're gonna come back soon to the in a year, but for sure we should mark this date down. We're going to do it, revisit this in one year, and we can get to see how close you were on your predictions, which I think will be ah, really exciting. I love it. Let's find out, all right, And then in the meantime, follow a Casey on threads. He's at Crumbler. Crumbler isn't Crumbler. It's not great, It's not great. I really should have just gotten my full name.
Is it Sea Rumbler? Is that it's Crumbler. It's Sea Rumbler. Yeah, I wanted to use their name. That Ryan was Tumblr, which was very hot in twenty ten when Instagram launched so and you can also follow me. I'm just Joshua Zapolski because I just decided at one point I was gonna use my full giant, horrible name every on every social network, which was ultimately genius Day. But no, no, it is what it is.
And anyway, check us out on threads. We're dropping some sick posts on there, both of us. I mean, just incredible content.
Yeah, tell us which way you put put the milk in here?
Yeah, we're like, I just dropped a big bod. It's is a hot dog of sandwich. It's getting a lot of get a lot of heat right now.
It got a lot of I think. Fuck.
Jerry actually just stole it and posted it on their thread, so it's it's really heating up out there.
Oh, thank you so much. This is super fun. You got to come back and do it again. Yeah, I have you anytime.
Well, I think we've learned a lot here. I think we've learned a lot on the show. I think what we now know is that if Casey and I podcasts together, we will giggle like little children for most of it. And I'm assuming annoying the listener tremendously, but also I think we've solved the riddle of social media, and that's
a you know, that's huge for us. I think we have personally made some great strides in helping humanity move towards it's the next stage of evolution, where we will all become glowing orbs of pure thought and communicate by telepathy, or we'll just all be using threads, you know, which is almost the same thing.
Well, that is our show for this week.
We will be back next week with more what future, and as always, I wish you and your family the very best.