If you haven’t heard, Facebook has released a new competitor to Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg and his marketing team have named “Threads,” and if you were wondering whether you should hit the download button in the app store, I’ve got some advice for you: Don’t bother.
(Related: What Is Threads, and Will It Take Down Twitter?)
There are lots of reasons for that, which I’ll get to. To prime the pump, though, is this the kind of fresh-faced platform you want to waste your time on?
If I wanted to get trolled by deranged men who say they are women, I can just do that on Twitter. At least over on that platform, I won’t risk getting banned for responding with biological reality. Why would I want to give Facebook even more of my information to receive a much worse experience?
It’s clear what Threads is going to be. It’s going to be a left-wing echo chamber protected by Zuckerberg’s idea of what constitutes “nice,” which is censoring the truth about things like gender ideology while propping up mentally-ill activists. Yeah, I’m gonna pass on that offer.
Then there’s the fact that Facebook deserves absolutely none of your business given the company’s past behavior. Some years back, Facebook nuked its news algorithms without warning, with the result being that it became essentially impossible for right-leaning sites to generate traffic organically. Further, the social media giant put in place a system of “fact-checkers” made up of heavily partisan outlets like Politifact to run around and censor information, some of which ended up being true (specifically regarding COVID-19 and climate change).
Again, does that sound like anything you should trust your time with?
I understand as a conservative commentator that the normal thing to do is to jump to whatever new platform emerges (previously Parlor and then Truth Social), but I just don’t have that desire. Having a “following” online isn’t that important to me. My thoughts are shared here at RedState in the form of articles with great readers. In contrast, all the social media sites are really just a measure of how much of my own time I want to spend arguing with people for no compensation.
With that said, Threads, as we previously reported, has managed to provide a little bit of entertainment, even if I have no intention of signing up for it.
Delusional trans activists are already proclaiming Threads “not safe for trans people” because the site isn’t instantly banning people who use the word “groomer.” You have to love it.
To summarize, my advice on Threads is to let it burn. I’m sure it’ll have some staying power (there are a lot of left-wing people out there), but I don’t see anything of value that it adds to the social media space. Better to go outside and take a walk.