Threads and Chirping

For less than a week I have been using Threads heavily. In that time I have commented on plenty of posts without senseing any hostility or unpleasantness so I thought that Threads may be troll free. I realise that this is not the case after posting that I would not get the new iPhone SE coming out in 2025 if it had a price hike. In my eyes this is a reasonable statement. It is not rude or provocative. It is not critical of individuals or Apple. It’s just an opinion.

An Opinion Hazed

This is when the nasty side of Threads and its chirp/bullying/hazing culture came out. Apple fan boys, possibly, started to attack that post and that point of view. Half a dozen to a dozen hostile answers have been written and it is tiring.

Polarised by Algorithms

The paradox is that when I confront the “trolls” I find that they are decent human beings that were triggered by the algorithms rather than people looking for conflict. It’s actually Threads and the Facebook algorithms that have stirred up this hostility. This is what I always fear with algorithms.

Algorithms force us to see content that makes us emotional, rather than rational, so that we “engage” with it. It’s a shame that algorithms drive hostility rather than convivival conversations.

Activity Dread

One of the key aspects of chirping/bullying/hazing that I find most unpleasant is that it makes checking the activities thread an anxious moment. Have people hazed me or are the reactions friendly? A single haze can be toxic.

I was tempted to dump Threads after several people wrote negative comments. Upon reflection the experience on threads is still overwhelmingly positive.

And Finally

Social media should be about being friendly and having fun. We can pull each others’ legs but it must be clear that it should be seen as tongue in cheek. The social web can and should be fun, and if we see trolling we should keep people to account, to keep decent interactions going.