Threads Thoughts

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For several days I have replaced Facebook with Threads and the experience has been good. I have found that the community, so far, is ordinary, rather than geeky, and friendly rather than trolling or flamey.

I have been posting and commenting for a few days now and although four or five comments got me to block individuals the rest of interactions have been good. I feel I should elaborate about blocking. I block if someone is negative, without giving a valid response, if someone is negative and I am likely to be negative back, or if I feel that a defensive response could begin a flame or troll war.

One key advantage of Threads is that it's easy and intuitive to use so luddites, and geeks can use it with the same ease. Mastodon is still for and by geeks, and trolling is and was a serious issue, as is an unpleasant aspect that I will not elaborate on.

I notice that a lot of people enjoy the fresh community feel, and how it feels like a chat. I see people say that it feels more pleasant than Twitter. I could point several dozen times a day that twitter was like that until people became obsessed with having a million followers and hashtags replaced the need for meaningful conversations. That would negate the positivity.

I see that the common problem is still around on Threads. "Threads is social media and social media is fake" and "Threads is nice but I prefer the real world and real people with real interactions". Both of those views have a toxic effect. The idea that people are fake on Threads is damaging to community building. It both encourages to show off rather than be genuine, and discourages others from engaging as deeply as they would.

With the second point about preferring real life and real interactions, the more people join, and the more people are local to where we live, the stronger the sense of community will become. That's why London was fantastic for Twitter, and London and Paris were great for Seesmic.

Months ago it felt as if Threads was a waste of time. Now I feel that it is worth investing time into, to meet new people. We will see how it progresses.