Do You Like My Threads? - That Was The Week 2023 #25

Speaker

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day When it's cold outside, I've got the month of

Speaker

July the 7th, 2023. That was the Week in Tech. And what a week it's been. I've got sunshine on a cloudy day. What a week it was. A week dominated by the Thread of Threads. Keith Leeds, do you like my threads? I have to admit, Keith, a very Jewish-looking Mark Zuckerberg. You made that out of AI. I'm sure there are many times where GPT-4 is going to get sued for anti-Semitism. You're not a big fan now. You're not excited. I was surprised. I thought you'd have been thrilled with some more innovation from Mr. Zuckerberg. I'm not. I'm not unexcited about it. I just don't think it's going to damage Twitter. I think the whole thesis that's out there is that it's pretty political, actually. It's people who don't really like Mark Zuckerberg cheering him on simply because they hate Elon Musk. Stalin versus Hitler. Exactly. Or Stalin versus Kropotkin. Might be closer. Honestly, the whole narrative around it is made up. It's clearly going to be an impressive app in terms of user base. Why? Because Facebook has 2.7 billion users. The latest count has got 70 million people signed up. I've made the point it's going to be big. It's going to be impressive. It's going to be an advertising revenue stream for Facebook. That's their business. It's the same as Twitter, right? It's their business, but it isn't going to be Twitter. I don't think they even want it to be Twitter. They're trying to build something that copies the user interface of Twitter without actually being Twitter. How hard is it to copy the interface? It seems to be everywhere you go on the internet these days, there are Twitter lookalikes. You can copy the interface super easily. That's what Mastodon, which we talked about before, Blue Sky, they're all copying the interface. Not all the behaviours. You can't do things on threads that you can do on Twitter yet, like hashtags, for example. It's different. It's a subset. I call it a minimum viable Twitter in my editorial. In your editorial, you describe Mark Zuckerberg. I don't know whether this is the Mark Zuckerberg or your AI version of Zuckerberg. He has the demeanour of a naughty schoolboy. He brazenly misbehaves and yet somehow insists he's playing fair. You write threads. Let's be honest, a very poor Twitter clone. It looks a bit like Twitter, smells like Twitter, and even feels a bit like Twitter. That's intended. It's a minimum viable Twitter or an MVT. Mark is a coffee cat. I think you met in Fibber, but you wrote F-I-B-E-R. That may be a Freudian error, Keith. It's a Freudian error. I should have put the second B in there. The press love this stuff. They love the Musk-Zuckerberg confrontation. They love Facebook taking on Twitter. It must have some impact, especially from the advertising point of view. Look, I think what's going to happen here is the people who hate Twitter hate it because Musk allows right-wing points of view to exist on it. It's mainly the left against Musk. They try to depict Musk as white supremacist, homophobic, lots of things that he really isn't. What they're doing is embracing threads as the antidote. You talk about these dark forces. Who are these people? I think that's because you don't like the left yourself. I am of the left, but I don't like this monochrome left that dominates. The conservatives think that Twitter is for the real left, so everyone's against it. Twitter's everything. That's the thing. You can hate it or love it depending on your demeanor. It's a glass half full, glass half empty attitude towards Twitter. You're going to find right-wing people, glass half empty, who hate it, and left-wing people, glass half empty, who hate it. The truth is, it's the closest thing we've got to where everything exists. The Facebook equivalent isn't trying to even be that. It's trying to be safe. I think safe is a big word. It's trying to be non-controversial. You might say it's trying to be boring. Why? Because that's what advertisers like. They don't like anything to rock the boat. I can think of some very successful boring media companies. Disney comes to mind. That's not a dumb ambition from a business point of view. That's why I said I'm not saying it's going to be a failure. It just isn't going to be Twitter. They're not claiming to be a Twitter. The only person who's suggesting they want to be a Twitter is Musk. No, no. All of the adopters are saying this is where I'm going from Twitter. They're seeing it as a replacement. It won't replace the experience they get on Twitter. They may argue they don't get a good experience on Twitter, but that's probably because they're biased. I personally think because they're biased, they don't like hearing other points of view. My experience of Twitter is there's very little diversity. It's an echo chamber, depending on which community you're in. I don't suppose there'll be anything different on any other network. What's Zuckerberg up to? You have a link in this week's newsletter. Twitter's final boss, Zuckerberg wages war. Does Zuckerberg really care about Twitter? Doesn't he have bigger fish to fry? He cares about being relevant. He's very good at that. Over the years, he's made major decisions that have led to Facebook staying relevant, from buying Instagram to buying WhatsApp, and now moving away from the metaverse, which he was focused on. It's convenient. It seems a smart move, just in the sense that no one's talking about the metaverse anymore. Great. Yeah, exactly right. Hitting Twitter whilst it's down, and I think it would be foolish of us not to think that he was thinking about Twitter as he was building this. He thinks he can build a bigger version. Twitter peaks out around 300 million people. Zuckerberg has 10 times that, and he thinks this probably could become a billion people. In order for that to be true, it should be mainstream, which is the word I'm using is safe, but it should be mainstream, and as uncontroversial as possible. It clearly isn't a social network in the same way that Facebook is, because it's about opinions and points of view. Why can't you put opinions on thread? No, you can. I'm saying it is about that, unlike Facebook, which is about your friends, a lot, at least. Facebook's full of opinions, too. It is, but its core use case is the people you know. My limited experience, I opened a thread account and an Instagram account simultaneously, and I have the honour of having zero followers on threads, and I don't follow anyone. The same as on Instagram, so I hope that will stay the same. I don't want to have to bother with it. My sense is it will reflect Instagram. Let me ask you this. Does the world need another scrolling feed of the same people you already see saying slightly less interesting things? To me, it's a non-product designed as a weapon. I think that thing you showed about the war is exactly right. It's a non-product designed as a weapon that the world doesn't need, and the only reason people like it is because it isn't Twitter. How is it different from Instagram? It's going to be different because it isn't image-led. It's going to be text-led. But you can post anything you want. It'll be good for video. We'll put our stuff up, right? Yeah, you can, but it's like the DNA or the centre of gravity of Twitter and the centre of gravity of threads are somewhat similar, whereas the centre of gravity of Instagram is different. It's really pictures of... Right. Speaking of centres of gravity, you have a TechCrunch post quoting... I'm surprised they post this. You can't post ass. Threads is doomed, so there's no sex on threads. Is there sex on Instagram? I believe the answer is yes. But it says Instagram's puritanical guidelines. Doesn't Facebook have puritanical guidelines as well? Yeah, it does. It does. Twitter has the least puritanical, but I think that's because its software isn't as good at finding stuff. Well, I'm not going to make any jokes on software and hardware, Keith, given... Well, the point that this author is making is the right point, which is it's going to be a highly policed and controlled environment. Like China? Like China. Like Saudi Arabia? Yep. Like Singapore? Not anymore, really, in Singapore. Like Singapore used to be. Well, I mean, it seems to me that... I mean, you say... You linked also to the... Adam Masseri announced today that he believes that threads isn't for news and politics, but whatever it's for or isn't, I mean, people will still post about news and politics, especially during the election cycle when we all get obsessed again with Trump. Well, yeah, the fact that he made that statement, and he did it on threads, I think, tells you how the mindset is at Facebook, that they are actually the policemen of thought. You know, they think that they know best. They're kind of an elite overlording it over everyone. You dislike more the Facebook people or your hordes of left-wingers, puritanical left-wingers? Well, they're the same people. They're actually the same people.

Speaker

Wow, there's no conspiracy here, is there? By the way, and I want to say, I'm left-wing. You know, I would still identify as a Marxist, but I'm not... This picture of Zuckerberg looks a little... It doesn't look very intolerant here, the AI you created of him. Yeah, it's a great AI. You should have... You know what it should have... You should have had the title, Do You Like My Ass? I hadn't seen that article by then. Otherwise, I still would not have used that title, actually, thinking about it. But I did ask... You're in a bunch of trouble. I used mid-journey. Are they going to put people in jail or just throw them out if they're naughty? What happens if you misbehave on threads? You'll get blocked or banned or... You know, they've got all this takedown stuff on Facebook already that just is the same stuff. But look, it doesn't really matter. It's another instantiation of Facebook. The only thing that's changed is the user interface. I'm seeing all the same people on it that I see. I've got 2,000 followers, I think, on Instagram. I'm seeing the same 2,000. By the way, it's the same people I saw on Mastodon. So this is like a roving trial. If there are only two people on all these things, it's you and Jeff Jarvis. How do you have time to go on these things? You know, it's research, Andrew, for you and our show. Yeah, well, that's a good point. I mean, in all seriousness, though, isn't all this Twitter's death by 1,000 cuts? How many more cuts can it take? I don't know its business well enough. Does anyone know? I guess they're a private company now, so Mastodon doesn't have to reveal their numbers. But they can't be good. You know, I think there's a very strong case that he's doing a fantastic job. He's reduced the workforce by 75% or more. He has opened it up to proper conversation. There is still advertising. In fact, the biggest complaint on Twitter is that there's too much advertising, which I think I agree with. Why is it more open under Musk than it ever was? Because the Twitter management before Musk was basically banning anyone they considered to be right wing, in quotes, or in their language, in violation of their terms and conditions. And, you know, that's just not a democratic society when you do that. And Musk isn't right wing, but he's not okay about banning people who are right wing. So he opened it up. He said, no, you can all post. It's fine. How many people did they ban? I mean, Trump and a few others. Does it really make a difference? No, if you go back to before Musk, it was thousands every day. It sounds like the Soviet gulags.

Speaker

Are they more Nazis or communists here? Well, you're having fun with it, Andrew, but you must admit that taking on the role of the editorial board, lording it over Twitter users is not a nice image. I mean, it just was unnecessary. Well, as you know, I hate Twitter and I do everything I can to avoid it. I think it's just annoying. It makes me want to have a shower. And if you don't like it, go somewhere else. Who cares, right? I mean, there's just more and more options now. There is, but startups have something hardcore about their vision. And Twitter's hardcore vision always was to be this public square. So that was never Facebook's intent. It isn't Instagram's intent. It is definitely not Thread's intent. So the only entity that has the mission or vision to be the public square is Twitter. So it's unique in that regard. And I think it's doing a better job under Musk than it did before him. But the whole idea of being a public square is it's not public. It's a private company and it's... Well, you know why that's inevitable? We talk about this a lot, but it's inevitable because of globalism. There is no nation capable of providing a global public square. So inevitably, software plays that role. And someone who has the audacity to stand up and say, well, that's us, deserves a pat on the back. Well, I'm not convinced. What else? I have a feeling that this is just a summer news story. It will go away. There'll be some people on Threads. I just think it's all a bit old-fashioned. They're fighting battles, the same old battles that have been happening for years. Yeah. Well, we probably both agree on one thing. Two things, really. One is Threads will be successful based on the definition of success that Facebook will have for it. And two, Twitter won't go away. Yeah. Well, we'll see. What else happened this week in addition to Threads? You have some interesting essays of the week. You write about Benedict Anderson. I know you're... No, sorry, not Benedict. Benedict Evans. You say he had a wonderful essay this week entitled AI and the Automation of Work. I mean, it's a big subject. What's Evans saying? So he surveys the history of automation and the impact on work. Primarily to make a single point, which is that automation has never led to less jobs, although it's been painful in the short term whilst adjustments take place. But that's not very original. We've heard that. And at the end, he says that this will be the same. Now, the reason I published it is I disagree with the context he gives to it. I personally believe that he's wrong to suggest that automation is a constant with no end. I think you get to the point where there really are no or very few jobs required. You work with a capital W. He seems to think that will not happen. But you celebrate. You think that's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. And he talks about it being painful. And I put it in because Vinod Khosla is in Video of the Week. And he talks about the same thing in the video, but takes a totally different point of view. Vinod makes the point that the end of work is the best thing that could happen to the human race. As long as private beach. Well, no, he makes the point that as long as society takes the wealth it creates and make sure everybody's life is raised up because of it. So he takes a kind of a fairly revolutionary social stance and a technocratic AI stance and puts them together, which is also what Sam Altman does. And I think that combination of the need for social change when there is an abundance of wealth is super interesting and very pertinent to the way the world is going to evolve. Yeah, except I don't see any political evidence. Where are the parties? Where are the thinkers? I mean, you have a few wealthy VCs saying it, but that's it. That's why it's interesting. I think we're at the beginning of the most important conversation of the next century. Is that why you have another link from Mark Siegel's believing that generative AI is such a nuclear? He uses the nuclear force and that's provocative. Yeah, that's a more trivial piece. I put it in the AI section, not the essays of the week. It's a more trivial piece, but it's making the point that, as we see with the Zuckerberg one I made, the ability to produce good art is really skyrocketing, very, very fast skyrocketing. Well, here's an example for people watching. This is excellent art, Keith, that your AI made of Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, it's super good. Imagine if I tried to do that myself. Do you think there's a market for a young, rather Jewish-looking Mark Zuckerberg? Well, two things. He is young and he is Jewish, so I think... Particularly young and particularly Jewish. I did ask Midjourney to give me a portrait of Mark Zuckerberg as a little boy looking lost, and he gave me this kind of boy's own... He looks like he's lost in Warsaw, I mean, in about 1934.