I remember not too long ago Zuck was being grilled by Democratic Senators and the entire progressive left for being too permissive of "Russian election interference" and data harvesting. They were basically accusing him of being a Trump/Russia asset. Fast forward 4 years and now he is a darling of the progressive establishment for creating a Twitter knockoff that will play ball in censoring who they tell him to. Wild times.

On this topic, I drive a lot and flip though local radio pop stations, and to a man/woman EVERY DJ on every station is talking non-stop about how much better Threads is than Twitter. And all the "news" at the top of the hour the leading story is how many subscribers Threads has reached in such a short time. It is obviously paid reads pretending to be organic. But it is extremely interesting seeing The Establishment in action. They were clearly dealt a massive blow with Twitter being bought by Elon and losing control of the narrative. And now it is time for The Empire to Strike Back (so to speak), with Zuckerberg as their champion.

I doubt Zuck is friends with progressive lefty politicians, and he created Threads to make money, not for a political reason.

I am not saying he is getting invited to any Obama parties anytime soon. But The Establishment has clearly decided to promote him/Meta/Threads (and the censorship they are promising) as a preferred alternative to Elon/Twitter. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and we are going to see a lot of positive coverage moving forward. Clearly (IMO) there was some sort of backroom agreement where the Establishment gave him the go ahead to put out Threads and they would promote it.

Even if it is merely a marriage of convenience and a "Enemy of my enemy is my friend situation" it is still an interesting turnaround given where he was a few years ago.

Why would Zuckerberg need a go ahead from establishment politicians to release threads?

Also, what campfire said. Progressives aren't dumb enough to think that Zuckerberg has any goal with Threads other than to make money.

I don't know if "need" is the word. But IMO there was a clear plan where they would provide him positive coverage and he would accede to the censorship Elon refuses to. And I would not be surprised if Meta/Threads gets some positive rulings down the line from progressive judges/politicians as it relates to lawsuits and hearings. Definitely a scratch my back and I'll scratch yours situation.

Also, all else being equal in an ideal world I am sure progressives would prefer someone who actually believes in the authoritarian/censorship cause. But nonetheless, this is an opportunity to leverage the tremendous reach and resources of Meta towards their cause.

I think the partially successful right wing boycotts of Bud Light/Target/Kohls/Ben&Jerry? facilitated through Twitter along with the recent Supreme Court rulings have dealt real damage to the establishment, and as I said Threads is The Empire Striking Back to regain narrative control.

Unlearn your "establishment" and replace it with FBs leverage, through market share, to direct advertisement and manipulate public opinion as they please. You're avg person doesn't fully understand the resources they have.

What youre seeing isn't a bunch if establishment boomers behind the curtain pulling the society strings and that it happens to be facebook that they're keyed in on at the moment. It's Facebook.

We will have to agree to disagree. I dont think Meta by itself could get every local DJ in Los Angeles to start promoting Threads all at once, no matter how much money they threw at it. These stations are all controlled by a few big players, and IMO a blessing has to be given from high up for this to happen.

It was the same way when Twitter came out, ironically enough. All of a sudden Twitter was just everywhere on media.

The products, the apps, the engagement, the addictive games, the advertisement, endless adversarial topics, the need for 90% of millennials to have their phone on them when they enter the bathroom to take a **** ... is the work of Facebook and Google.

Also, it actually doesn't require a lot of money "to throw at it" anymore. That part is mostly mission accomplished- It's just the lobbying now.

Pretty much this.

It's true that politicians want a platform like Twitter or Threads, but the only reason there is a migration to Threads at the moment is because of the mostly true perception that Elon has cocked up Twitter.

Any person in the political realm who thinks that Zuckerberg is a reliable political ally is delusional. FWIW, I've always said the same thing about Elon.

How many of these threads about the Democratic elites advancing a story, company or liberal agenda to the detriment of the conservatives are going to be started by this guy?

Dude thinks the sun rising due east and setting due west is part of a MSNBC/Dem-led conspiracy, so, pretty much all of them.

Zuck wants to make money. He saw a platform that dominated the market change hands and the new owner has systematically made changes to drive away advertising revenue and he would like that revenue.

Just get with the cage match already.

i like the idea that people can think that Facebook cant/wouldnt make a bunch of local DJs promote it through advertising dollars, in a world where Sinclair bought almost 300 local news channels and can make them all read the same script on the news.

But that's not really what OP is suggesting, or at least it isn't all that OP is suggesting.

"It is obviously paid reads pretending to be organic. But it is extremely interesting seeing The Establishment in action. They were clearly dealt a massive blow with Twitter being bought by Elon and losing control of the narrative. And now it is time for The Empire to Strike Back (so to speak), with Zuckerberg as their champion."

And half of very qualified employees got lay off too from Twitter .
Pretty important and a nice bonus imo on not needed much money being put in development etc when you have very qualified employees available already knowing the job ?

What you discard as waste can always be used by your “ennemies”.

All for conspiracies, but don't think there needed to be a "clear plan" involving secret agreements between Zuck and "the Establishment" for Threads to be born.

Seems more likely Meta observed a mass of Twitter addicts ruffled by Elon's changes, which opened a market opportunity for a Twitter variant that would more dutifully censor "misinformation" and provide us a safer echo chamber.

Twitter Files proved no one (at scale) gives a **** about government colluding with big tech to push/squash narratives, and you don't really need to disguise censorship when a majority of Americans are openly clamoring for it.