The Threads Explosion — With Alex Heath

Alex Heath is a deputy editor at The Verge who's been reporting on Threads from the first row, including an interview with Instagram head Adam Mosseri. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss Meta's launch of Threads, discussing who exactly it competes with, what the feed will look like, and the implications for Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Join us for a lively conversation about the fastest growing social media app of all time. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected], Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put Agentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of enterprise business solutions at Voya Financial, to go inside a large-scale Agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade-offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay?

• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razer were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for a free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for a free consultation.

• 1:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format. We have a great show for you today. Meta, it's introduced Threads, the so-called Twitter killer. In just about two days, the platform has added 70 million users. Let's write 70 million signups. But what does it all mean? Is it actually going to compete against Twitter? Is it going to be an Instagram competitor? That is something that's been underappreciated. We'll get into it. Joining us today is an amazing guest. Alex Heath is here. He is a deputy editor at The Verge. He's been all over this story, including interviews with Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram. And I am so excited to bring this conversation to you today. Alex, welcome to the show.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks for having me, Alex. Double Alex time.

• 1:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Two Alexes, that's right. Let's start it off with a bang. What is Threads? Because... I feel like, you know, people have called it a Twitter killer. I don't necessarily see it as that. Can you just describe what the platform is?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting. Actually, right before we started this, Mosseri and I have been threading, I guess is the word about this. And he specifically just said to me, like, we don't want to kill Twitter. This is in the context of the news industry, which we can get into later, but. Um, yeah, what is threads? I mean, they can be saying that they don't want to kill Twitter, but I certainly think they wouldn't be launching this right now. Had Twitter not kind of started to self decay like it has in the last several months. So. They kind of rushed this thing out. Um, Meta is notorious. They kind of invented this playbook for. A B testing new products uh in certain markets around the world. And the run up to a public launch being very methodical about.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Stats and usage and all these things and bugs and they just like push this out the door. I think. Adam Mosseri said it was the most YOLO launch they've done in a very long time. Uh, and it seems to be working. They're at like, what? Over seventy million signups now? I think they're going to be. Chat G P T is the fastest growing consumer software product of all time. So.

• 3:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  No doubt about that. So how does the product work? Because there's a feed that looks like Twitter. It's mostly text right now. Um, would you describe it as analogous to Twitter? What are the similarities and differences?

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's really similar. It's it's a much simpler version of Twitter to start. This is definitely a minimum viable minimum viable product.

• 3:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Like no D M's?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  No D M's, which Adam Mosseri told me that. They don't really want to add that right now, but they may be frogmarked frogmarched to do it. Uh, I think they will be because. I think people who are power users of Twitter have been over the years really get that that that loop between tweet to D M is really special. Um, but yeah, it's this very simple version of Twitter hooked off of Instagram. You bring your Instagram profile over with you. Your followers kind of auto populate from Instagram when they join. So it's got this. Built in bootstrapped network that I think is why you're seeing this crazy signup number. This is. Being built off of an app that already has over a billion users, you know, Instagram. So of course you're going to get a ton of early interest. I think.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Um, the real uh thing to watch will be retention. Do daily users stick on the platform? Do they build a sticky product and now they're focused on that? So adding things like a chronological feed, um adding more, you know, list type features, bookmarks, even like you can't see your likes right now. There's a lot that needs to happen and they know that and they've got a long laundry list. But right now it's just like a really simple version of Twitter with everyone from Instagram.

• 4:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  So I'm gonna make a bold claim and say that it's quite different from Twitter. And the reason why I'm gonna put that out there is because there's no following tab. It's just for you, so it's entirely algorithmically sorted. Actually, the algorithm looks a lot like Instagram's algorithm. Um, so I'm curious what you have to say about that. And it also moves a little bit slower. So actually, it seems like the goal of this app, and I think Meta has said this, is to get you to dive into certain conversations and then, you know, participate in the threads as opposed to just like scroll through a fast feed of tweets. What do you think about that?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Um, well, I think they shipped what they could for launch. Uh, I, it is a very simple kind of engagement based algorithm. Um, if you follow more people, you'll start to see more people you follow in the feed. If you don't, they're gonna just be recommending stuff to you. And I think that's the right approach. Like, I think power users, people that are listening to a show like this, like, want to have that control on their feed, but most people don't. Talking, as you know too, Alex, like talking to people who work at these platforms over the years, the vast majority of users just opt into the algorithmic feed. They prefer it. Um, it's better for engagement, has always been. So I think it was actually smart for them to launch that way, cuz like it, it auto-populates threads with content.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Uh, now whether you find that content interesting or not, they've gotta fine tune that, give you more ability to say, I don't wanna see this, I wanna see more of this, less of this. They have all those surfaces on Instagram and Facebook already, and I think it's gonna be relatively straightforward for them to port that stuff over to Threads, especially since Threads is built off of Instagram's tech stack. It is effectively a d- a different skinned version of Instagram from like an internal meta backend perspective. So I do think that gives them the ability to move rather quickly on making some of those changes.

• 6:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, and I think you just highlighted some really important points. So first of all, the question of whether you find this interesting or not. Now, there's a lot of energy on the platform because it's a new platform and people are trying to build up their clout and their following there. And you also mentioned that it's effectively a different version, a reskinned version of Instagram. And, you know, it's been said by some of the observers, uh, looking at this thing is that like, people are pretty good at posting a picture on Instagram, you know, showing a photo of your family. It doesn't really take a lot of insight or a lot of skill. And you have a great camera, so it's probably gonna look good. But posting text, right, that does take a little bit or to consistently write like insightful or interesting things that people wanna read is much more difficult than posting a photo.

• 7:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  This leads me to believe that people on threads will end up defaulting to images and videos, which we're already starting to see. Actually, when I open my feed now, I think it's more likely that I end up seeing a photo than I end up seeing a text post. And Mosseri said that basically the way to think about this is if you wanna have a conversation about something, you put it on threads. If you want to just drop a post, put it on Instagram. But I think it's just such a meaningless distinction. And it just leads me to believe that what Meta has created is not actually a Twitter killer, but an Instagram killer or an Instagram competitor that is not quite sure, not, not fully appreciating. What do you think?

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, it's an interesting, I was thinking about this yesterday too. Um, what, if so, if Threads continues to take off, how does the distinction remain between the two? It will present Meta with some interesting challenges because they are always thinking about, uh, revenue, obviously, they're a huge company. They have this thing called monetization efficiency, which is a term they use internally about how the different apps monetize relative to the other apps. They try to keep them in balance. Uh, they, the worst situation would be having a, um, having an app that is new and not monetize,

• 8:36Speaker 01

  potentially overtake engagement on Instagram where they make a lot of money. So that will be an interesting, uh, dilemma they reach when, if for some reason Threads is starting to take off to that degree, they have to decide, do we put the brakes on this because we're not making money on it? Is this actually just the new Instagram? How are we gonna make it different? I think all that is like TBD, we're like a day or two into this thing, you know, but like, that's, um, I think that's, you're, you're spot on to point that out early, I think.

• 9:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, now, let me tell you what my feed looks like right now. So I have a picture of Tony Robbins at the top. That was algorithmically selected, I guess, trying to, you know, promote his business, but it's something he would put on Instagram. Then I refresh and it's a picture of a pizza on the top, which is great. I love pizza, but I would never use Twitter for that. I would use Instagram for that. And I think this is, it's a risk that I, I just think is underappreciated. I wonder if Meta really thought this through. I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg's animus with Elon Musk. Might have, and this rush to try to take advantage of a competitor's weakness, might have pushed them into, you know, something that, of course, the product is being celebrated, but I also wonder if it's going to be an own goal.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  It could be. I think they would not mind having an own goal. Like, that's better than just like not doing anything. I know for a fact they saw Elon's rate-limiting fiasco on Twitter last weekend over the Fourth Holiday, where he was saying, "You can only view 600 tweets, etc." And they saw that and the reaction to that and went, "Oh shit, we need to just rush this out." They were gonna, they were gonna release it next week, not this week, and give more time for celebrities to get on-boarded. But they decided, "Let's work through the holiday, through the Fourth. Let's get this thing out as quick as possible, and just take advantage of this moment." Which I think was smart, because if they would have shipped this thing even two years ago,

• 10:28Speaker 01

  maybe even a year ago, even right before Elon was taking over, I think people would be like, "Why do we need another Twitter-type app?" But now there's this sense that people are looking for alternatives, and they know that.

• 10:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  And so this is the other thing, right? Even though I think the biggest threat is to Instagram, especially Instagram's growth, and we can get to its fight with TikTok in a minute. It's not good for Twitter either. And I have this theory about Twitter, where is that you want about 100% of all the breaking news to show up on Twitter. That's the utility, right? If something is happening in the world, you want to be able to know that you can go to Twitter and you'll find out about it. Now, let's say even 25% of that energy moved elsewhere. Let's say it moved to a place like Blue Sky. Let's say people who used to post breaking news to Twitter, they're now posting it to Threads. For some reason, maybe they're posting some of it to TikTok. Twitter has a place where you get like 75% of the breaking news is so much less useful than a place that when you get 100%. In fact, it's a much bigger ding to it than just a 25% decline

• 11:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  in value. So I'm curious what you think this means for Twitter, how Twitter should feel about this, even if, you know, potentially it's not exactly gonna kill the app, it could degrade the app in a way that's actually a lot more meaningful than completely destroying it.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we know how Twitter feels because Alex Spiro, Musk's personal lawyer, sent this super cringe letter to Meta yesterday threatening to sue because they think that Twitter employees are working, former Twitter employees that Meta hired are working on threads and stealing Twitter's secret sauce. And then Meta responded saying, uh, no, Twitter employees are working on threads. That's not a thing, which was, I thought, a great response. I'm, I think the interesting framing here is what Mosseri and I were talking about on threads right, actually, before we started recording, where he literally said to me, my take is from a platform's perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue they, the news industry, might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny,

• 12:21Speaker 01

  negativity, and let's be honest, integrity risks that come along with them. So that's him being pretty blunt about how Meta feels about promoting news. And they're not going to take any active role in putting the thumb on the scale for news to flourish on threads. They're not gonna, they're not gonna un-promote it, they're not gonna discourage it.

• 12:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  But they could keep it at an arm's length and it would still feel better for a lot of people disseminating news than Twitter, which is where the risk really comes for Twitter.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they know.

• 12:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  What do you think this means for like a product perspective for Twitter?

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Um, well, based, I mean, we're, we're so early in this, like, we should have this discussion again in a couple of months. Like, they can't even really calculate what a DAU is on threads yet, because we're not even a week into this.

• 13:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Four days in. But imagine it continues on its trajectory.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the foreseeable future. Uh, the energy is certainly there. Uh, the news industry is, is already there in a pretty big way, which I've been surprised.

• 13:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  I was scrolling through and I was like, The Economist is on this thing? Like, what?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, think about it, there are all.

• 13:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  It'd take years to, oh, they're on Instagram.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  I underestimated how much the news industry had migrated to Instagram, even though Instagram hasn't really been a place you think of for news. But all the brands have accounts there, just because it's such a huge platform and those accounts get automatically ported into threads. So that's happening while at the same time, Mosseri, the head of the app is saying, like, we're not going to promote this. Like, we're okay with it, but we don't love it. Like, we don't want the baggage. Uh, definitely don't want the threads 2024 election. Um, like, I'm waiting for RFK Junior to get on there and starts talking about anti-vax stuff and get labeled and like, we're gonna be in this like, it's like, you and I have been covering Facebook for a long time. I just like, I'm ready for this size little like star all over

• 14:04Speaker 01

  again, but like with a new app. Um, for Twitter, uh, it's just another problem. I mean, I don't like, is this, is this their main problem? I think their main problem is like, they've got a bunch of vendors that they haven't paid who are threatening to sue them or have sued them for bills that they haven't paid. Like, they can barely hire, uh, all of their former employees are wanting the company to burn. That, like, Twitter has very few friends right now. And so I, I, yeah, the news leaving Twitter is a problem for them, but like, I don't, I don't know if it's even like their fifth biggest problem right now.

• 14:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I disagree with that. I think that, you know, the stuff that you're talking about, money can fix problems, right? If your bills aren't paid, you can figure that out. But ultimately, like, if you're a tech product, what you are is what you are for users, right? And it does seem like the product is degrading for users. I mean, users are there for up-to-the-minute information and entertainment, right? So if Meta is trying to take that entertainment thing and, and threads and news, news folks are trying to find anywhere they can to go that's not Twitter, and then what are you gonna be on the platform for?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Uh, Elon, you like Elon? I mean, that's kind of like where it's trending these days. Um, you know, like, he bought it saying he needs, it's essential to have a town square for the world, and it's become his town square. And I just think it's deeply fascinating that Meta, this company that, you know, a year or two ago, everyone was going like, these guys are evil, they should not, you know, they're a monopoly, they shouldn't have more power in social media. Now we're like, please, like, we need an alternative to Twitter, run by Mark Zuckerberg. Like, can this be the actual town square? Uh, the irony of all this is I think Meta may actually create a good town square, or at least a better one, than what Elon has, uh, in mind for Twitter.

• 15:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  So I want to talk about their ability to create a better town square. But first of all, let's just kind of key in on what you just said. It's just that- It does seem like everybody's talked about how Mark Zuckerberg is the root of all evil is all of a sudden like praying to Mark Zuckerberg to take, you know, the energy away from Twitter. What do you make of of this, you know, shift, especially for many in the media to sort of go from, you know, Zuckerberg's biggest and Facebook's biggest critics to now their biggest supporters?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  I mean, it's

• 16:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is it intellectual dishonesty? I mean, what would you say it is?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  I think it's the enemy of my enemy, you know, I think everyone found a tech billionaire mogul that they hate more than Zuckerberg and it's Elon Musk. And it's kind of as simple as that, like.

• 16:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, how do you, if it's, if it's about rooting for executives, then how do you have a lot of credibility or any credibility? If it's, I mean, I, I guess like I'm trying to wonder, I'm not saying you, Alex, I'm saying, you know, loyal you.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm trying to wonder like how press that could have, you know, how did, how, how they so totally went after Zuckerberg, um, can cheerlead threads and still be believed in terms of like their ability to evaluate technology issues critically?

• 17:09Speaker 01

  I don't know. Does anyone, do, if you took a normal person off the street and said, do you think the news industry can evaluate these tech companies, uh, critically and honestly? Would they say yes? I mean, I think we as the collective news industry have been losing our credibility slowly, uh, as objective truth sayers for a long time, which is a whole bigger discussion. Um, but I do think Mark Zuckerberg as your lower third, you know, suggesting his image has shifted quite a bit. And it's also a result of like the jujitsu and the cage match and, and bragging about how much sleep he gets and his kids and like, he's got this kind of dad

• 17:49Speaker 01

  vibe going. It is just more endearing than Musk's, um, whatever you want to call it. I, I don't know, like, um, I, I just, it's interesting to watch.

• 18:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  My commenters today said that what Musk has been doing is just the walrus, which is his,

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  his so-called, uh,

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  wrestling move where he just like lays on top of you and just wiggles. And they're like, most of what he's been doing has just been, you know, lump maneuvers without much thought or skill and.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's like. You know, Elon has built some amazing companies, like he knows how to do hardware. He knows how to do deep tech, scientific breakthroughs, no question.

• 18:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  And software, I mean PayPal is.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  And software, although his, his influence on PayPal, I think, yeah, definitely was influential, but like, that's kind of a little bit, I think, thornier. But yeah, in terms of like, he can make amazing cars and spaceships and the satellites, like absolutely. Software and people, my boss and Eli wrote this great essay when he took over Twitter called Welcome to Hell, just saying like, basically, all these things that you think you're good at, like, you have no idea how different social media is, because it's people and the weirdness that comes along with that. Mark Zuckerberg has been doing this his whole life. He knows

• 19:11Speaker 01

  nothing except social networks. And so, Mark's not out there trying to make cars, but Elon's now trying to do social media. And Mark's now saying, as of this week, like, let me show you, like, how it's done. And, and, and like, oh, and we may go fight in a cage as well, which like, I still hope happens, obviously, but for now, we're just in software fights.

• 19:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  The cage match has been such a great promotional tool for threads, like, you couldn't matter, you couldn't imagine a better way to gin up interest in your new social platform than to say, you're gonna fight the world, one of the world's richest men, who happens to own the biggest competitor in a steel cage.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great.

• 19:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  I hope it happens. I mean, it seems like even less likely now, but I do hope it happens.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Especially because I just, I played such a small but fun role in it, where Elon was responding to me about it. And I just wanted, I just, it would be, it's gonna be so self fulfilling if I can just be sitting there ringside and watch the walrus take, take place.

• 20:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  It would be great to see. I mean, Elon has to try the walrus at this point, if he's in there.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  He does. And, you know, if it happens at the Coliseum, that's gonna be a bummer, because you know, that's gonna be super hard to get into. It's very limited seating. It's gonna be very expensive. So I hope it's actually in Vegas. I hope Dana White gets that done in Vegas. But yeah, we'll see.

• 20:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly. All right. I want to take a quick break and then come back and talk a little bit about whether threads can actually make friendlier social media. And then we can also potentially get to some questions. We're streaming live here on LinkedIn. So if you have questions, please drop them in and we'll get to them. Yeah. So why don't we do that? All right. We're here with Alex Heath. He's a deputy editor at The Verge. Very big into this whole story about threads. We'll be back right after this. This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data, and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and

• 21:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  prove it's under control. That's exactly what Avpoint does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate. Your data, your cloud, and the agents acting on your behalf. It's how more than 28,000 organizations deploy AI with confidence. So innovation scales without scaling risk. Avpoint, the unifying trust layer for AI. Head to avpoint.com to see how enterprises deploy AI with confidence. Learn more at avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast. That's avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast.

• 22:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Violent threats against executives are growing at an alarming rate. When a company experiences backlash, executives are the first people blamed. When their address and other personal details are sitting online, this backlash can lead right to their front door. The team at Ironwell knows this better than anyone. They've protected some of the most targeted executives and individuals on the planet for almost two decades. As a white glove enterprise security service, they protect your people with continuous personal data removal, proactive prevention tools, and human-led emergency support. So when someone goes looking for your executives, Ironwell ensures they hit a dead end. So here's what to do. Go to ironwell.com/bigtechnology, fill in the quick form, and request your free risk assessment. Their team will show

• 22:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  you just how exposed your executives are and how to lock it down before a threat reaches their front door. That's ironwell.com/bigtechnology. Learn how to stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. The link's in the show notes.

• 23:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition with Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge. He's been covering this thread story in great depth. And, well, anyway, it's been a week for you, Alex.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yes. It's been a week, yeah.

• 23:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  So let's just talk about the dynamics of threads because when Zuckerberg and Mosseri have talked about how they want to make this like a friendlier version of Twitter, I thought, okay, that's a little bit delusional. Social media isn't friendly at all. However, there have been some interesting things in the product that have been pretty intriguing in terms of the way that they're operating it. So first of all, there's no counts on the numbers of retweets or re threads you get. And people have talked about how Twitter is this anger video game and the points are the retweet numbers. And now they don't display the points. I mean, they're very interested in, you know, showing metrics and hiding metrics. And so like the fact that they've hidden those is pretty telling.

• 23:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  It also seems like the algorithm is just prioritizing. I mean, you can, you know, tweak a social media algorithm to be like if someone calls you like an idiot or a dummy or a loser or nerd, you know, get that out of there. And if someone says awesome, amazing, super, that's so cool, you know, you can promote it. So what do you think about the way that the product is structured? And do you think they have a snowball's chance in hell of actually making it a friendly social media forum? Because that would be quite an accomplishment. I mean, give them the Pulitzer if they do that.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I mean...

• 24:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Or win the Nobel Peace Prize, actually.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  I don't know. Is it possible to quantify the friendliness of a platform? I don't know. I'm sure Meta has tried.

• 24:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, we can do vibes quantification. We know, I mean, this is, this has been done. Like the comments on YouTube, for instance, are like the meanest place on the internet. And, you know, places like Reddit is a helpful place and places like Twitter is an angry place.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  I do think the identity portion of this is important, so you can certainly have alts on Instagram and have pseudonymity there. But in general, you're getting a lot of people who are themselves, like their their their real names coming over from Instagram. And are following the people they follow on Instagram, which is a good mix of people you actually know, and of course, brand accounts and celebrities. But it's not this totally anonymous, unpersonal thing like Reddit or even Twitter has been, where you're just coming coming into it blind. So I do think that has a chance. I mean, the vibe I've gotten in the last, you know, whatever, 36 hours is that it is a pretty friendly place in general.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  I would hope that a new platform wouldn't just start off being super mean, but I guess it could.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  I don't know how they make it ensure that it's friendly. I mean, what will inevitably happen, the bigger it gets, is that people who wanna sow discord, people who wanna rage, dunk, bully,

• 25:58Speaker 01

  the like, you know, conspiracy theory stuff, that's all gonna come on there and they're gonna have to to moderate that, and I think they're prepared to do that. They're pretty aggressive with moderation on Instagram. And it's the same tooling, so.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Is Instagram friendly social media? I guess that's the question. If you think if you think Instagram is relatively friendly social media, I think Threads will be too.

• 26:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  It seems like it, but also Instagram is filled with fakeness.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and I think Threads already is too. You've got a lot of like the LinkedIn, high LinkedIn, but like LinkedIn thirst trap influencer content, like recycling memes from that I've seen the same thing posted on Twitter and LinkedIn, like, there's a lot of people trying to already game the system. But I don't know, it seems friendlier, at least for now.

• 26:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, so we have a question from someone watching here from Doug about whether Meta is really ready to moderate threads. And I am curious, like, if you, I think there is going to be this kind of culture war issue where like Twitter will be like, oh, people will say Twitter is the free speech network and Meta is the censorship network. And, you know, so I'm curious what you think the moderation is going to look like and does it like divide into, you know, two networks where like Twitter is like, you know, potentially like, you know, true social and you have Meta as like the, you know, Democrat Twitter.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  I definitely don't think they want it to be Democrat Twitter. I have already seen like their warning labels, misinformation labels that they have on Instagram. People have been saying that's been spotted on threads. So again, it's like the same tooling. So, well, are they ready to moderate it? Again, we're talking about something that is literally built on Instagram's tech stack using the exact same moderation, content guidelines, etc. So, yeah, they're going to moderate it. They certainly have more moderation capabilities than Twitter does, even before Elon. So, yes, I do think it's going to, there's no nudity, for example, which is a huge difference from Twitter.

• 28:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, maybe that's more likely. Where like Twitter is the porn social network and then...

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I saw someone say Tumblr for incels, which I think is good. Yeah.

• 28:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, my God.

• 28:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it is, it is interesting. The porn will, will keep the appeal of Twitter. I don't know. Ever since Elon's took over, I've definitely seen way more showing up in like really benign searches. I like search for like the Mets game. And next thing I know, I'm like watching, you know, seeing this awful image scroll across.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  I mean, like, the top thing on my feed on Twitter yesterday was a like three hour Lex Friedman video interviewing RFK Jr. Like, literally, it was like maybe three hours long, like at the top of the feed. And I'm just like, okay, this is what this platform is now. It's just, it's changed so much.

• 28:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you find Lex, do you think Lex is right wing? I think he's, seems more down the center.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I'm not saying he's right wing, or that it's, I'm just saying like, that's the kind of content, it's like,

• 28:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  It's Elon's circle of who he spends time with, who, Twitter has become this reflection of him. Uh, not a town square, not something that's objectively more, has bigger breadth, more types of content. It's actually narrowed quite a bit into like, I think the circle that Elon would like to like, go to a barbecue with on like a Friday.

• 29:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes. So what do you think about pseudonymous account? Is that the right way to say it?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 29:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  With fake names. It's a very difficult word to say, but like, one of the things that's really thrived on Twitter is people that have, you know, made these names like, you know, these parody accounts or, you know, sort of accounts with, without their names, and they've just gone crazy on, on putting all this content out there. Now, it seems like there's like a lot of people who are pretty worried about using threads because they think that they're gonna like, lose their, you know, their anonymous identity or metal inevitably exposed to their parents, like what their Finsta account is. Things like that. It's a real concern, right?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you can't cycle threads accounts like you can, like between them, like you can on Instagram. Also, if you try to delete your threads account, it will delete your Instagram account, which is a huge problem for people. I think they're gonna, they're working to untie that, but that's what the V1 experience. Um, yeah, Instagram really embraced alt accounts because they saw that that's what young people wanted. They want the, they wanted the Finstas and their Instas and all that. And, um, I don't know, I just don't think that's like a first order problem for them with threads right now. I think they'll get to that, but that's not like at the top of their list. Like threads is not available in the EU yet, for example, like that's a tier one problem.

• 30:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Pseudonymity or pseudonymous accounts are like probably the 20th problem.

• 30:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Um, right.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  But, um, it is a huge difference from Twitter. I think it's for the best. I think alts give you more cover for people to treat others, uh, in a way that they wouldn't treat them if they were talking to them in real life. And I think as a platform, if you can encourage people to talk to each other like you would face to face, you have a better shot at kind of maintaining civility.

• 31:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  The EU thing, the way that I read that was kind of like a FU from Meta to Europe. And the company didn't really think that it was gonna have Threads take off in this nature. And so they thought it was like a, an easy way to just kind of thumb their nose at Europe. Now the platform's taken off. I mean, of course, they can operate in Europe. They have Facebook operating in Europe, they have Instagram operating in Europe. What is this business that a new app can't operate in Europe? So I, I would imagine that they very quickly, you know, backed down on this. Like, it's kind of like the same thing that they do, like, you want us to pay for news? You can't have any news, like, it's like that, except now it's actually costing Meta in a big way, um, in terms of its ability to grow this platform in Europe.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Well, I think you're right that it's costing them, but I think you're wrong on the reason they did it. And it's going to take long, a long time. I would, I would not be surprised if in six months Threads is still not in the EU. Maybe in six months it'll be on there. Uh, because of regulation that the EU is passing that's coming into effect next year called the Digital Markets Act. It labels Meta, Apple, Google, all the big tech platforms as gatekeepers. And with that distinction comes a bunch of new requirements about they have to be interoperable with other platforms. They can't self-preference their own services on their platforms. The list goes on and on. It's the most sweeping tech regulation that's ever been passed by, uh, such a large governing body.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  And all the big tech platforms, not just Meta, are freaking out about it and how they're gonna comply with it.

• 32:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  But how can they operate Instagram there and not Threads?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Because it's already, because it's already an existing product. So when you launch something, there's a level of attestation you have to do about the data leakage. How that data on that platform interacts with the data on the rest of your gatekeeper platforms. So because Threads is tied to Instagram, are they mixing data for ad targeting with other platforms? How are they doing that? They have to certify how all that is happening internally directly to the EU. And if they're wrong in how they certify it, or if they miss something, or because they're so rushed, they don't look under all the covers and they miss how some data leakage is happening. They get fined out the wazoo. These are not just like parking ticket fines.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  These are debilitating fines based on a company's market cap that could literally put a company out of business. So they don't want to play with that. That's what Adam told me and others. And so that's why they're taking their time on it. They didn't even like A B test threads in the wild like they do. Like I was saying earlier, they just like released it to get it out. And so the this is the first example of the EU and the DMA and how that's going to slow new products from coming out in the EU. I do think we're going to see plenty of other software products like this not come out of the EU initially because of the DMA.

• 33:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Interesting. Okay. So that's something that I will agree with you on that. I stand corrected. Let me let me ask you a further question. I mean, how do you think European citizens are going to react to this? Can't imagine they're going to be so happy.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I would be mad if I'm in the south of France right now chilling on holiday and I can't get on threads. I do know friends who are in the EU right now and they're using threads. So it is possible and people have VPNs. Let's not pretend that like you can't get an app if you don't want it, no matter where you are.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  But it's not like in the EU App Store, right? So there's a level of accessibility that you're not getting.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  I I wonder if backlash from people not being able to get threads or whatever else comes out next, the next chat G P T, etc. will result in the EU Commission rethinking some of this. I don't know. The DMA has changed so much since it was first proposed. Its release has been pushed back something like two years. There's been so much lobbying about how to change it and make it more something that companies can actually comply with. It's just so sweeping and affects so much of how these companies operate. Again, it's very unprecedented. So I think we're all it's all kind of like happening in real time right now.

• 35:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, okay. A couple more questions for you. First of all, um, do you think Meta is paying? Or do you know of Meta paying any of the creators to be on threads?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  They're not.

• 35:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  It seems like that would be a standard part of the playbook, but why hasn't it happened in this, in this case then?

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're not. Um, they have had done that playbook before and I think it's, it's not worked for them. That's been, if you work in the news industry long enough, you'll have heard about four different cycles of Facebook launching new products, new surfaces, the watch tab, et cetera. Writing a bunch of checks to publishers to get on there and then pulling the plug in two years. It's like a tale as old as time.

• 35:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  And I think they've realized that that... Yeah, the playbook just doesn't work. So no, they're not. I, I had heard that they were considering it, but they decided not to and so, um, no, they're not writing checks this time.

• 35:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, and I, I had teased earlier about the TikTok battle. That to me seems to be the biggest thing in Meta's sights right now. And you don't think this is going to be a little bit of a distraction? Like, how do you think this impacts their battle with TikTok?

• 36:09Speaker 01

  I think they feel pretty good about where Reels are at, um, relative to TikTok. They've made up a lot of lost ground and certainly they're still worried about it, but they see the opportunity with Twitter's implosion right before them. And I think the Reel stuff is kind of more just, uh, kind of just trending up. And they're not as worried about it anymore, has been...

• 36:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  There's some amazing data that I think last, last quarter, they had 24% more time spent on Reels thanks to some AI improvements they made in the algorithm. And it just shows you that that product is just absolutely exploding.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, this is what Meta does. They take formats that other people invent. Stories, uh, short vertical video, uh, tweets, whatever, tweet threads. And then they just bolt on billion-plus user bases, scale it, add in better tooling, better infrastructure, uh, more moderation, and it's like, uh, it's, it's their playbook and it's, it's always worked.

• 37:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and so here they come. Uh, what's your, what's your, as we wrap, what's your, uh, prediction on, on where this goes?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Threads.

• 37:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  We won't, we won't, we won't, um, hold you to it, but yeah, speculate away. Uh, what has Threads evolved into and what's its impact on the rest of the Meta business and Twitter?

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, what I can safely predict is they, um, are now going to be throwing a lot more resources at Threads than it had originally. Threads was built by a team of a few dozen people inside Meta. The first code for the app was written in January. It's come together very fast. Now it's got the attention of the world. It's got Mark Zuckerberg posting regular new user signup goals or milestones. Um, the whole company is excited about it. And when that happens inside a big company like that, guess what? Everyone wants to work on it. People want to throw more budget at it, more headcount. I expect that team to grow really quickly.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Um, and then to start shipping a lot and be very curious to see what they keep borrowing from Twitter in terms of like, do they have bookmarks? Do they add audio? What do they choose to take? What do they choose not to take? They're ruthless studiers of these other platforms and the metrics and all of that. And so if they are choosing to leave things out that Twitter has, it's probably because they've done research and they know that it's not really working. So they learn from their competitors more than any other software company that I've reported on. So, um, I'm, I, I think the safe prediction is like Threads is going to change quite a bit.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  And they're going to only throw more resources, resources at it now that it's blown up.

• 39:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  And where does this leave Elon Musk's Twitter?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. He's trying to turn it into like a bank. I mean, he wants, he's like, he wants like, he got some money transmitter licenses the other day. Um, they're trying to convince advertisers to come back. He's got the new CEO, Linda Iaccarino, who's not really a CEO, but she's got that title.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  I don't know, man. Twitter's in such a tough spot. I never count out Elon. Like that's what everyone who knows him tells me, like, you know, he's, he's one of the generations defining entrepreneurs, of course. Um, but he's got Meta to contend with in a social media war. That's a tough battle. This is not, these are not rockets. Like this is, these are people and, uh, and posts and, uh, Zuck knows that better than anyone. So I don't know. It's going to be really interesting to watch.

• 39:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Alex Heath, thanks so much for joining.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 39:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right, everybody. Thank you for listening. We'll be back Wednesday with our next flagship interview and again, back here on Friday with Rajan Roy, who's currently out in Romania. So we're excited to hear about his travels and we hope that you join us next week. If you are a first time listener, please hit subscribe. If you've been listening for a while, or even if you just enjoyed this first episode, a five star rating goes a long way. Again, we do these news shows every Friday and a flagship interview every Wednesday. Thanks again for listening. Thanks, everybody, for being here live on the stream and everybody on the feed. We'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  In this life, you can't win.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  When the world gets you down.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  No!

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Escape to Pluto TV.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 41:14Speaker 04

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Shwing!

• 41:19Speaker 04

  Even our news is uplifting.

• 41:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  You stay classy, San Diego.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  Watch School of Rock, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Ex-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more.

• 41:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  We're not worthy!

• 41:29Speaker 04

  The best things on TV really are free. You just have to know where to look. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.