Uncanny Valley | WIRED13 Jul 2023

Stop Trying to Make New Twitter Happen

Hey look, there's a new Twitter alternative. The text-based Instagram offshoot Threads launched a week ago, and in the days since, the platform racked up over a hundred million users. It's a huge showing for parent company Meta that has Mark Zuckerberg and other execs celebrating. Meanwhile, current Twitter owner Elon Musk is fuming as Threads threatens to unravel his platform’s microblogging dominance. But despite its initial success, it's not yet clear whether Threads will emerge as the top social space. These early days of Threads may feel slightly less toxic than Twitter, but it's already being overtaken by cringey influencers and pseudo-sassy brand accounts. It's also just one more thing to sign up for, and could stretch just how much tolerance people have for all these new microblogging platforms.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior Kate Knibbs joins us to unspool the question of whether Meta's new social service is too much, too little, or just right.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about how it’s time to stop making Twitter competitors. Read all about how Threads may be the thing that kills Twitter, and how to run Threads on your desktop. Or, you know, don’t sign up for Threads at all until it becomes clear how much of your data it is harvesting.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends the book Natural Causes by Dan Hurley. Mike recommends Life Examined from KCRW. Lauren recommends season two of The Bear on Hulu.

Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(446)

Why You Might Already Own SpaceX Shares; Inside the Knicks' Owner's Surveillance Machine

This week, the team discusses Apple’s Siri AI brand new release, SpaceX officially going public — and who will benefit the most from it. They also get into how Meta removed a facial recognition featur...

11 Jun 40min

Trump Foe Mounts Competitive Senate Bid in Florida

When Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, a key witness in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, announced he was running for one of Florida’s senate seats, he was considered a longshot....

9 Jun 39min

The AI IPO Race Gets Weird; Elon Musk Sued By DOGE Whistleblower; Instagram's Hacking Incident

This week, the team discusses why the race among the top AI companies to go public has just gotten started but it is already creating bizarre repercussions — including numerous San Francisco real esta...

4 Jun 26min

The Tech Behind McLaren Racing’s F1 Dominance

Formula 1 racing is a global phenomenon. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown joins Katie to break down the historic turnaround of one of motorsport’s most iconic legacy teams. After turning around a decades-...

2 Jun 38min

How Crypto Scam Compounds Use Romance to Make Billions

Last year, a mysterious source reached out to WIRED’s senior writer Andy Greenberg — someone who claimed to be an engineer trapped in a scam compound in Laos. According to the whistleblower, the compo...

28 Mai 16min

How the Internet Could Help the Iranian People

It has been nearly three months since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Journalist Jason Rezaian, a former detainee of the Iranian regime, talks about its brutality - and his hopes for the...

26 Mai 43min

Why Is Meta In Crisis?; Google Search Is Over; AI Gets Booed by Graduates

This week, the team discusses Meta’s recent layoffs and what they’ve been hearing from employees about the increasingly grim vibes at the company. They also talk about Musk losing his lawsuit against ...

21 Mai 39min

Tom Steyer Makes His Case for Billionaires

California’s gubernatorial race is drawing national attention, with several Democrats and two Republicans vying for incumbent Gavin Newsom’s seat. Among them is hedge fund billionaire turned gubernato...

19 Mai 35min