I just can't do Threads

 Maybe a new platform isn’t what we need

*Other Data includes times you picked your nose, phobias, and broken pinky promises
Here we go again, yet another Twitter clone, claiming to have what it takes to steal the doomscrolling crown from Elon Musk’s increasingly evident clusterfuck.

Only this time, it has the advantage of a familiar pedigree, a “trusted” brand — that of none other than Mark “Cambridge Analytica” Zuckerberg. It’s what we’ve all been waiting for, an already heavily populated microblogging platform which doesn’t require a working knowledge of Linux to join. A chance to be an early adopter — perhaps even an influencer(!) of the next greatest social media platform, as if it was 2011 when these things still mattered.

Meta’s stocks have soared, many have finally ditched their Twitter accounts, and after the ill fated metaverse excursion, Zuckerberg is relevant again.

So please excuse me, for not giving a shit.

I’ve been an addict, I mean user, of Twitter since 2006. But like every cigarette fails to deliver that first high, and every drink leaves you with a deeper hangover of regret, it’s been impossible to replicate those early glory days despite years of trying, over and over again.

Twitter was already starting to fall apart in the years before Musk took over. We know it was compromised during the Covid period, the algorithm was becoming increasingly overbearing and our echo chambers were getting smaller by the day.

Unfortunately his promise to turn it around, taking it back to how it used to be, was quickly shattered by his blisteringly incompetent management. His need to make it profitable had the predictable effect of corrupting any chance of restoring the better times.

An alternative was inevitable and when Musk’s greed in charging for API access, led to massive data scraping, which led to the rate limiting fiasco, Meta smelled blood and pounced at the perfect time. You have to give them credit for that. Especially the speed at which they were able to deploy their innovative new platform: “Instagram without pictures”.

So why does it suck? Well, because it’s Meta. The company who undermined democracy, eroded privacy, exploded cyberbullying, and revolutionised misinformation.

The company who, despite doing all these things, continues to be used by billions of people.

I miss the old internet. Before the corporations took it over and bastardised it for profit — making websites barely readable through ads, tracking our every move, and walling us into conformist gardens.

Meta is the prime instigator of this new hate filled, narcissism breeding, profit aggrandising, sterile internet. It was Facebook going public in 2012 which created the attention economy itself.

Meta’s foray into the last vestige of free expression is the final straw for me. It’s the death knell of the internet we once knew. It’s heavy metal T-shirts being sold in high street clothes chains. The ultimate corporate insult of a once thriving counter-culture, now gentrified and mass marketed to everyone who wants to be different but is really just a slave to the corporate empire.

I don’t need a replacement for Twitter. I need to do what I did with cigarettes and realise that I’m never going to get that high again — and it’s time to stop poisoning myself altogether.

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