What Future with Joshua TopolskyDisgraced Threads Editor Katie Notopoulos Dishes the Dirt
Josh gets a rare chance to sit down with the former Editor-in-Chief of Meta's Threads app, Katie Notopoulos. As an internet denizen known to be controversial and divisive, Katie wasted no time stirring the pot on the Instagram-adjacent social app. On today's episode, the two discuss what went wrong — and right — in the early days of Zuckerberg's would-be Twitter killer, and Katie sets the record straight on what the Facebook founder really thinks about moderation on his platforms. This is a whirlwind of an episode you won't want to miss. Discussed: The Nazi lifestyle, drinking at the park, the joy of posting.
Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host, Joshua Tapolski, and I guess say we have a real treat today. I'm excited we managed to get a guest on that frankly was a pretty you know, pretty hard booking to lock in and not surprising due to all the all the excitement swirling around this person. But you know, I do have a little bit of an inn and so you know, I'm excited to say that today on the show we have the former editor in chief of Threads, Katie Natopoulos, who also is a former senior reporter at BuzzFeed and a general like internet personality, I think, a well known and well loved and also probably hated internet personality. I'm excited to talk to her. I should also say that, you know, she is my sister in law, but that's just an icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned, because Katie, long before she was my sister in law, was an iconic figure online and so I'm excited to get her back on the show and talk about her latest adventure, which involves a wild ride with the one and only Mark Zuckerberg. So let's just not waste any more time let's just get into this thing. What is that coffee over there, Katie? You drinking a coffee late in the day.
That's actually it's a beer.
Is it beer? You hiding it? You're concealing your beer?
Well? Does that keep it cold?
Yeah, because otherwise it was like gonna get like warm in the can because it.
Reads, Yeah, it reads this concealment. But I do understand. I understand what you're saying.
For Father's Day, we got like Thermoses to drink beer in the park, which sounds also now sad, but to conceal it well, so there's like every Sunday there's like a concert in the park here, and like everyone brings like beer and wine, but like this way it can be like it has like a lid so it doesn't spill. So it's mye So now I found it very convenient, keeps things frosty.
That's great, Katie.
I'm glad that I could get you back about to keep back on the show. Even though we are you know, related, and you know, in a family together, it's hard to connect. You were just saying, you're just saying before we started that you guys hadn't been to a swim we have a pool, and you hadn't been over to swim, and that is that is true, not all summer long, and we're in We're in mid August right now.
It's true.
I've been I've been waiting for an invite, but my million box is strangely empty.
Ow.
Well, you know, it's a standing invite, you know, basically. But I guess you're right. We could be more proactive about it. So on that issue, I guess I am fully to blame. But but you've had a busy you have personally had a very busy summer, and I wanted to talk about it. I don't remember the date exactly, but this was the summer of Threads. I think, as everybody's been referring to it, it's the uh I.
Think we've all been talking about Meta introduced.
It's Twitter competitor threads and you know, too much fanfare. It's built a huge following a huge amount of followers quickly on threads. Hundreds of millions of people have joined, at least one hundred million.
I don't know.
And you were, you know, early on, you were really setting the tone on threads as Meta's Threads editor in chief.
Yeah, first off, could you talk about.
The experience of what that was like building, you know, working with the team with Adam and Zuck to build the product, and just talk a little bit about the creation of Threads.
So, Josh, first of all, thank you for having me on.
I'm your sister in law and I've been a tech reporter for a long time, previously at BuzzFeed News, which unfortunately shut down at the end.
Of April, and I was so lucky to get.
A wonderful opportunity to become the editor in chief of the new Threads app which launched in the beginning of July.
And you know.
I was just so excited to really get to work with the phenomenal team over at Meta.
And just seeing them work was like wow, you know, it was like it was like watching the Miracle on ice hockey team.
Oh okay, wait, hold on, wait, who is who is the miracle?
Ey?
Is that like a show where like people are doing like they're like dancing or whatever.
What is miracle? What is the miracle on eyes?
If you could just sure, I believe it was the nineteen eighty USA hockey team in the Olympics that, against all odds.
Beat Russia. Okay, oh, okay, in.
Eighty four, but I think it was eighty.
So not like a Harlem globe trotter situation, like that's in my head that's what I went to immediately, but it's actual thing that happened in history. Okay, that sounds like Vega.
There's actually I believe there's even a move, a fairly recent movie about it called Miracle, But it was I think the idea was that they were sort of like the underdogs and the people, which is strange. It's like, why would people think that the US was not good at hockey? I men, I guess I don't know.
I don't know the history. I a lot of ice rush, fairly famous sports thing.
And also someone's going to like respond to this podcast and be like two Olympics, idiot.
So listen.
So you were there at the beginning, you were working with the team, and then of course the app launches.
Everybody's freaking out about it.
You know, Elon Musk is going crazy threatening lawsuits, and Azuka is cracking hilarious. Joe suddenly, Mark Zuckerberg, you're at the time your boss, your by at least your boss's boss is suddenly.
That's what I call him.
Yeah, he's suddenly become a little bit of a folk hero. The he's the David that's laid Goliath. He's actually like Goliath. He's like actually like the Goliath that slaid David or whatever. I guess anyhow, you know, he's like, it's like the bad guy won in a way, but also yeah, they're both bad guys. So like, you know, again, as I as I put on Threads in the early days, I posted the Alien versus Predator poster from the when the film came out, and it's of course has the famous tagline whoever wins, we lose, And I said, this is the only way to think about the thread situation.
Right, It's like, ultimately you're you're rooting for a guy who should be tried at the Hague.
They say they say the enemy of my enemy is my friend or something like that. I think that's like, I don't know, all these guys are shitheads who suck. But okay, so getting back to it, I mean very successful and accomplished shitheads who suck. So you're the Threads editor in chief. A couple of questions, One is, can you tell me a little bit about what the job entailed? In that role, give me a little like flavor of what was going on right around launch as you were, you know, sort of really putting the pieces together.
Sure, so I think that, you know, really a big important thing was I would consider my role there. It's like a vibe some some milia, you know, a vibe curator. Really, you know, it was it was a lot of like welcoming celebs on. It was like, hey, guys, we've got Eva Longoria.
Yeah, that's amazing. We've got George t Que. He's just threatened it up.
You're almost like a You're almost like a you wanted to bring the the quality posters to the forefront.
You were sort of a facilitator in a way exactly.
And so when someone like Gary Vee shows up on Threads.
And there, I'll never forget that day, you know, when he was finally on and I'm like, finally culture has arrived on Threads and yeah, it was it was amazing. But then listen, it was all going great. The early days were fantastic, mm hmm, but then there was a little bump in the road. Can you talk about the situation that that went down and which ultimately led to your spoiler alert but your dismissal as editor in chief, can you talk a little bit about what happened?
Yeah, unfortunately, this this all unfolded in my first day officially on the job.
But you know, that's I was.
I was just posting, because you don't say tweet on threads. Its posting lots of threads about how I'm the new editor in chief and this is my new job and I'm so happy and excited and a lot of like, you know, s full of thread you know, emoji totally r you know, muscle.
Arm emoji, rocket ship emoji.
Yeah.
I thought your energy was amazing because it was really like the kindest, most welcoming, like most pro threads energy that anybody could put out there.
Yeah, and and then two things sort of went wrong for me, so, you know.
And of course I was, you know, just doing my job.
But a journalist from the Intercept, Ken Clippenstein, I think, so.
That sounds right. He's got a great, great newsletter, got a great newsletter.
Yeah.
He he posted a picture of Mark Zuckerberg shaking hands with NBS. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia committed horrible uh.
Acts, And so I said something like, you know, every time.
We should just continually keep posting this picture every like in response to Mark, you know, Zuckerberg every time he posts.
Ken's trying to keep mind it right.
And I think a little bit you know, pointing out hey, because for a moment, you know, one sort of uncanny thing about the threads is that all these Facebook executives who like never tweeted or like posting it up, you know.
Trapping Itch in particular, is was incredibly active on threads.
Oh yeah, remains incredibly active.
So you know, I think that I think that a little bit people were like excited by that. It was sort of funny, you know, he was doing a little like you know, riffing on Elon and uh, you know, seeming like a cool guy. And you know, I think Ken wanted to remind people that you know, he's complicit and some very bad things. I responded to you know, of course, you know, as editor in chief, I responded to him, you know, waving hands emogie. Hey, Ken, I know that you know you didn't know this, but actually bullying is not allowed on this platform, and so bullying you ever post this picture again, We're going to have to deactivate your account.
Yeah, Threads is a product that's kind of build out of Instagram, and you have to remember that Instagram has a very strict moderation policy, and so I think you have to remind people like Threads, it's not the same it's not the same situation as Twitter.
Not It's not just like any kind of bullying is.
Going to be I can't just bully billionaires. We don't toperate that here on Threads. Bullying is bullying, that's right. You can't not bully Mark Zuckerberg. And so I think a lot of people, you know, were they're a little surprised by that as official Threads policy.
Yeah, okay.
And then someone else had responded to me, asking are you going to ban the Nazis from Threads? And you know, I took a page from my boss, Mark Zuckerberg, who you know, in the past has said that he would be happy to allow Holocaust deniers because it's simply a different viewpoint.
That's right, that's right, Fame.
I think we should remember famously, Mark Zuckerberg, who is a Jew, famously told I think Kara Swisher, I want to say on a podcast that he was like, yeah, like, if there's Holocaust and ires on the platform, Like that's okay because they just are sharing.
They don't have to view.
Them, right.
I think they're wrong, but I'm not going to ban them.
I mean it was fair.
You know, you got to see it, got to see from every side. Like there's the side it's like, hey, this thing happened. It like a horrible genocidal atrocity happened. You know, that's the like the fact base, science based side, you know. But then on the other hand, there's like an opinion like it didn't happen, which I think is also like a valid argument.
Right right.
And I think at the time his reasoning here was I think it was in the discussion was sort of about misinformation, and he was he was His argument was that people who are Holocaust deniers aren't intentionally trying to misinform other people when they say the Holocaust int happened. They genuinely believe this edroneously, but they they're just they just happened to be mistaken. They you know, kind of like how I thought the Miracle on Ice happened in nineteen eighty but it was really nineteen.
Eighty two, that's right.
I mean, I mean, who amongst us hasn't hasn't believed it something that was incorrect and then shared it widely on a social network, Right.
So, I mean I do believe that the stance on Holocaust deniers has changed.
Yeah, they reversed a sand.
Since that interview.
I thought it was.
It turns out if you say something totally stupid, embarrassing.
It's off you for like months about it.
It's obviously wrong, you will reverse your stance on it.
I think, yeah, I do think that their their policies on that have have evolved since that interview.
But anyhow, but.
Getting back to the point, you were taking a cue from mar.
So, someone said, will you will you ban the Nazis? And I said, here on Threads, you know, we welcome diversity of viewpoint and we welcome everyone. This is an inclusive space, and that includes being welcoming and inclusive of people who choose to live a Nazi lifestyle.
And a lot of people got upset from that.
Well, I think, as I think in a situation where you're representing you know, the Threads app really, when you think about it, like as the editor in chief, in some ways you're the most vocal representative of the of that space. I mean, I get it, you know, I think saying like you know, we we we the Nazis here is a little controversial, I guess. I mean Mark, it doesn't sound like it would have been that big of a deal to Mark.
But but then what happened, uh so, you know, I.
Mean, well, a couple of interesting things happened, so that particular post sort of it went like viral. But I can't really tell because Threads doesn't show you like retweet count.
Or like, it doesn't really allow you to see, and you.
Can't search, so it's really actually hard to see how far something is traveling. Like I could see that a lot of people were commenting on it. I could tell that a significantly above average number of people were commenting on.
And this was at this point. At this point, had the app hit one hundred million users at this point, I think.
No, I think that's a good day or two later.
But I could also see that people back on Twitter were sharing screenshots of it.
I could see the people.
We're talking about, sorry, just to be clear, so people off platform or screenshot and and they were sharing on other platforms, Like the editor in chief of Threads just said this, right, So that's incredible.
God, Katie, it was a lot of.
Like, you know, hey, I'm I was considering checking out Threads because this was you know, it was like the first day or something.
A lot of people were like should I try it? Should I go for it?
And then people would be like sharing the screenshop being like, no way, I'm not going to join this app because look what the editor in chief says, right yeah.
I feel like at.
This point, Josh, I feel like I have to spoil the bit, and for anyone who's listened this long time, really, really I need to make it clear that.
Like I was joking, I was not the editor in chief of Threads.
Okay, fine, all right, fine, let's let's spoil the bit. Katie was pretending to be the role that doesn't exist, the editor in chief of Threads. And then I mean, I actually, I mean I was hoping we continue the bit through to the point where you were called into I believe you said you were called into Mark's office, but maybe it was Adam.
I mean, I you know, I think that I just I feel bad for any listener who's like tuning in, being like, why is just talking to this Like.
Well, I don't think I think my audience is savvy enough to see through the veil of humor that we've dropped on them.
But so yeah, to be clear, you were doing a bit.
So it was a bit like it was basically like the first day I like sign up for an account and I was like, you know what am I gonna do here? And I was like, immediately my brain went to like I've got a fuck around, like I've got a troll lightly.
On you, because I think people have to understand that you are a professional poster and like I think a lot of people don't realize like what that means, and what it means is when you get on a platform, you're gonna you're gonna post, and uh, you went right to the to the heart of the matter. You went right to the heart of posting, which was pretending to be an employee, pretending to be an employee of threads.
Uh.
And and because you have like a you know, you have a following, and people like started to following you immediately.
It was like, I mean, everybody.
Who was following you, who knows you and your thing, was like this is the greatest bit of all time. Like everyone was like playing along with the bit and uh and so yeah, I mean it quickly spiraled out of control.
From what I can tell.
Well, you know, I feel a little bad because I I think I probably overestimated the quote.
Everyone who knows me like knew it was a bit, because I think that like people who know.
Me well knew it was a bit people who maybe were like vague acquaintances. And it keep in mind, Threads hooks into your Instagram friend graph, so it was like, you know, my friends on there were like people who you know, like like real normies, like not people who were maybe familiar with my work or.
Your Twitter graph and your Instagram graph are a bit different.
Right, And also like there's just plenty of people who like maybe they followed me on Twitter or something, but they don't like know me. And you know, like if I'm saying something that sounds like a conceivable truth and then I'm like, haha, you suckers. I was lying, Like I don't know, It's not their fault for not knowing that, right, Like, I think what was funny about it to me, at least, was that the idea of an editor in chief of Threads was both ridiculous but plausible.
Plausible and I think widely accepted by many people.
To be honest, there was this sort of I mean, like there is not an editor in chief of Threads, but there was a time, you know, in like twenty fifteen or something where it seems like every app had like an editor in chief, you know, or like there was always some sort of like former journalist person, and that was for a while a very lucrative thing to do, to like be a journalist and then go be the editor of like Snapchat or something.
Right, Yeah, and so that moment is sort of over.
Yeah, By the way, I went back while you were telling the story and just went to look at some of the posts you're doing. What strikes me is particularly, like I think resonant about them is that you are basically doing like what Linda Yakarino's been doing on Twitter. Like it's like a person who is so on the fucking payroll, like so obviously embarrassingly on the payroll for like kind of a shithead, but has to be like everything's going great, right, It's like if this is fine type of tweeting or posting or whatever. If you're like, you know, just got out of a big meeting with Zuck and the Meta team. We're absolutely loving all the great posts you're all doing here. Keep up the great work everyone, artie this and make sure you follow me. And then you're like, you know, Keith Edwards, Threads hit thirty million users in ten hours, My god, and you are like quote quote posting this and you're.
Like, amazing, great work everyone on my threads. Teap.
Then you've got like the arm, the bodybuilding arm in the rocket red z emoji. It's like it's just very it's just very like you know in a way, it's like you know, blink twice if you know you need help or whatever, like yuh.
I feel like my one of my favorite ones is I think I said something like I just want to like say, how many amazing posts are especially from brands.
Yeah, I know, actually I just went past that. One thing I'm loving is how funny brands are on here. You guys are killing it. That's a post that you did on threads. I like this one too. This one is amazing. It's a repost of mister Beast, who's like to celebrate threads launching. I'm gonna give this tesla to a random follower. And you're like woo hoo. The Threads team and I worked hard with Tesla and mister Beast to make this awesome contest happen. Thank you to Elon for donating the car and your support of the silly little app.
Then it's the Threads emoji, a thread emoji, the.
Rocket ship emoji, the strong arm emoji, and the car emoji. It's just so fucking perfectly bland cheerleading of like the product that it is. I would say, like largely all that, like Linda Yakarino has done on Twitter. It's like, I'm not sure that she has any power, but she definitely goes on Twitter and is like, We're so excited about what we're building here, and it's like, are you She's just cashy the check anyhow. But yeah, so so, but then you went through a whole thing where you got fired, Like you went through a whole bit.
So the Nazi thing, in particular, I could tell was like getting a little out of hand.
And I say out of hand.
It was like all my friends and people who sort of like knew me knew this was very clearly a joke, and that the joke is about how Facebook and platforms have kind of actually.
Yes, viewed that.
Yes, you know, the joke is the joke is this is the answer that they actually fucking give a lot of the time when you're like are you going to moderate rights Nazis or are you going to moderate like hate speech? Are you going to moderate lies? And they're like, well, we welcome all viewpoints, and it's like.
Yeah, And I could tell it had traveled outside of that bubble of people who know me and knew it was a joke, and it was onto something bigger where people were just generally aghast by it, which you know, again, I think is a good thing because I think people should repeatedly feel agast by like the poor content moderation decisions that are happening on platforms.
But wait, hold on, hold on a second, Hold on a second. Is this real?
There's a fucking oh, there's like some Economic Times dot India Times dot com. Who's Katanatopolas know about? Editor in chief of Threads now fired over a controversial post. It's just like I think an actual article from some like oh it is okay. Taking to Twitter on Friday, July said seventh, Katie atopol has announced on Twitter that she has now fired as editor in chief of Threads met as new social media app there recently wanted, okay, whatever this is like one like if you search for Nazi lifestyle, hold on, oh this is okay, these are your Nazi lifestyle Threads app. That's like the second there's multiple articles. There's actually multiple articles written about I.
Think what happened was that it basically like you know how you know the a famous tweet about how like.
Everyone's goal on Twitter is to not be the person of.
The day, right, yes, yes, I was the Threads person of the day for like a moment, and like, I think it got to the point where it's probably somehow hit some Google metric of trending, like and so these seo like sites that kind of you know, like what's the one like breaker or like.
I don't know, they're all anything.
That basically is just like sensing whenever there's a blip in the like.
The site Dexero, do you know the same Dexerto?
I feel like, no, don't worry.
There's a Katie in the topless one now because of this too.
And who is who is Kaane? The topless troll. Threads editor goes viral with controversial posts. I mean they did like a full on BuzzFeed style like fucking slide show ship on this, Like it's so really.
Funny because it feels very AI generated too.
Yeah, I'm not sure that these aren't, to be honest, Like it.
Just attracted enough Google information. I think that the post on Threads had traveled enough that people enough people were googling who is Katie to topless because they were trying to figure out if it was legit, right, I think, right, I think a lot of people were like unclear.
Well, Also, the fact that you had been for a long period of time a reporter at BuzzFeed made the plausibility of you becoming the editor in chief of Threads just absolutely perfect.
I mean it was like completely acceptable to believe that.
Oh yeah, like yeah right, like BuzzFeed News shut down like she got a new job, is like editor in chief of Threads like completely By the way, I'm sorry, I'm reading a sports keyted dot com some fun. There's some these crazy spam, random fucking gout. The internet is full of such guardas.
Oh definitely.
Well, one thing is a couple of them said that incorrectly they thought my account was taken down.
What ended up happening.
Yes, they did say that.
That's right, the Nazi post was taken down, that one single post that was the post.
Were you pretending to be, as a joke, the editor in chief of Threads, a role that does not exist. Were you were telling a person a thing that you had zero actual power to do or implement, which is letting people who leave a Nazi lifestyle post on Threads.
They took that post down just to be clear.
That that is krreshed.
So and what was the rationale? Was it impersonation? What was the no.
When you get a post taken down, it doesn't tell you, like exactly why, And you know, there's a very clear reason for that, because a lot of the time Facebook doesn't want you to know exactly its rules, right, Like they keep it fuzzy for a reason because as soon as people know the exact rules, they're going to gain the system.
Right.
So it just said like this was in violation of our policies or whatever. My guess would be that it would fall under like you're not allowed to like encourage or show support of hate groups. To can't say I like you can't say I'm not a Nazi, but I support.
Them, right, sure, yeah, okay, fair.
So I have a feeling it probably fell under that.
I mean, I wouldn't be totally surprised if the fact that I was also impersonating Threads employee played some context.
I think there's sort of two versions. One is that like people.
Probably reported it, you know, like people report things race. It flagged to some outsource moderator who had to make a decision in point five.
Second, guy in a sweatshop who has to look at.
The possible this you can't like you're not allowed to praise Nazis or show support of them, Like does that count as praising Nazis? I don't know, maybe like sure, take it down whatever, like but you know, frankly, you know what better safe than sorry? Fine, I'm happy with that, you know. Or it's possible, I think much less likely that, like there was a higher level discussion about whether or not to allow that very misleading, an inflammatory post about meta itself to continue.
Well, I think I think in a way it would. It exposed.
First off, was a very funny bit, and everybody who does know you thought it was very enjoyable to watch it play out. But I think what it exposed is like you touched on it already. Is the real and sort of absurd reaction that these companies have to things that twe a person, a normal person seem obviously like addressable. And I think you brought up the thing where Zuckerberg said, you know, well it's a different opinion or whatever about like holocaust and ires, and I think like there was also as a part of that, and it may have been that interview, or it may have been a separate post that he did on Facebook or something where he was like, I don't believe I should be you know, the person who decides what speech like should be allowed and shouldn't be allowed on this platform or whatever. It's like rationale is like, well, it's such a big platform and there's so many people on it, Like I can't be the one, you know, the guy who decides. And it's like, well, you know what the thing is. It's a publicly owned company that is a for profit business, and like ultimately you actually get to say as the CEO what you won't, will and won't allow on the platform. And they do it all the time, right, Like there's a ton of shit, there's a ton of shit you cannot put on Facebook, Like a million different horrible things you cannot post on Facebook, and it's like you could decide and just have you just have to deal with the fact that people will go like, you're not letting all the viewpoints on here, but like so fucking what right, But they don't want to do that. They want to play this like weird middle ground, like for what reason. I don't really know. I understand like the concept, but it's not hard.
To be really I think the reason is clear, right Like that. Ultimately, Mark Zirgerber doesn't really care about the moderation. He cares about getting hauled in in front of Congress and having Republicans yolotan because he moderated too much, right, right, So this gives him the whole excuse of like we created this out outside the Facebook Oversight Committee and basically just punt all those hards. He does not do anything to not have to be the one to make the decision about banning or not banning Donald Trump.
I would love I would love to be in front of Congress and have someone be like, you know, question the why or why you ban a Nazis thing, you know, and just be like, look, dude, you know if somebody's clearly posting Nazi shit, like I don't know, seems.
Pretty straightforward, like if you think otherwise, like I'm all yours. I just don't understand the argument.
You know, it's it's never okay, so it's never going to be the Nazis.
No, but you can use the Nazis. You can use the Nazis.
To be fair, Facebook has banned Nazis for a long time, okay, and so his Instagram and like, frankly, the question about like are you're gonna be Nazis on threads, it's like, yeah, you know what they've had, Like you're.
Not allowed to like already ban a Nazi for a long time, right, Like the.
Only place where Nazis aren't banned is Twitter.
That's the right, or you know, honestly, technically they probably are.
No, I don't think they are. I don't think they are.
I don't I have a feeling if you are, like literally I'm a Nazi like that stuff, it's probably a no. But I think where you get into trouble is all these edge cases things like like libs of TikTok is the perfect example of something that's this like really frustrating edge case for these things where it's like she's constantly towing the line of like, oops, I'm going a little bit over what you said the rules were, Oops I'm not you know, back and forth. And if it wasn't someone who had like millions of followers and all of a sudden, like a lot of eyes on her, they would have banned her a long time ago. But now it's like now she's this like nightmare person who's so popular that if she gets.
Banned, and like Josh Hawley's gonna yell and like.
It's not necessarily just like the Nazis, because I just like the reason everyone sort of uses that as an example. It's like, of course you bann the Nazis. The question is like do you ban the transphobes? Like do you ban there's a lot of stuff that doesn't fall under h beats that is very objectionable, right or.
That like they wiggle there.
They're really right up against that of the line of you know, hey, maybe some of the posts get flagged.
Some of their posts, don't you know.
Yeah, so that's where they run into problems, you know, that's where people are like annoyed by them for not being a little bit stricter on that stuff, right, I mean, like, you know, content moderation and trusted safety and policy is not easy, right, Like I think that like it sort of does a disservice.
I think to make it also seem like it.
Would just be so easy just bend lots of people, Like that's not purely the answer, but clearly Facebook has done a very like there's a there's a lot to point to about how they fail, right, Yeah, they've They've.
Done a lot of unforced errors, sure.
At any rate, So you know, it was a good run. You'd a great run.
It was a good run.
But I started getting like a little bit like once I started seeing the like SEO stuff pop up. Yeah, a couple people were really like aggressively. There was one guy who I was like, buddy, what's what's what's going on here? Like he was just messaging me on every possible platform to be like, Nazi jokes not funny, You're disgusting. And I think at first he didn't know it was a joke, so he was just like he didn't think.
It was a joke.
He was like, you're disgusting, you support Nazis. Yeah, and then eventually.
He realized that it was a joke, and he was like, Nazi jokes.
So not funny, but he was, you know, he was sending me LinkedIn messages, he was emailing me. I was like, buddy, like, I agree, I don't like the Nazis either, Like, but please stop bothering me. Right, he was getting like a little I could tell I was in a my head and so I was like, I gotta fire realself.
I can't keep this joke up much longer.
Interesting, Okay, I didn't realize I sort of missed the whole. I mean I maybe saw somebody share the Nazi thing, like laughing about it or saw you do it, and I was like, well, clearly, you know she's making this joke. I guess I didn't realize that the reason you stopped was sort of because of this outside sort of weird shit that was going on, Like well.
Some of amazing.
I mean, I wasn't gonna keep up the gag forever. It was also like funny for one day and then like it wasn't you know, it wasn't gonna be that much funny right anymore anyways, But but it is weird that like because threads doesn't show you the you know, likes and reposts numbers. It's hard for an outsider to tell if something is actually going viral or not. So like, there's no reason you would have known that this was actually like blowing up right. The only reason I could know is because I was seeing some of the notifications of like the responses and the thing, and I was seeing the chatter on other platforms, like I had people like texting me weird stuff. Like honestly, it tricked a lot, like it tricked Walt Mosburg.
Like yeah, like, oh really did about it?
Like I don't think this threads thing is gonna be very good because of look at this, like there was a screenshot that was sort of like a distant bodies and like balth Mosberg doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know that I'm kidding, Like right, Waltmarpha, of course, is a very famous uh techtern.
But you know what's funny is that Walt Mosburg and I love Walt, but one of his big projects he works on now is news literacy. Like he has this whole thing that he's doing around news literacy, And I just want to say, pretty amazing that he saw that didn't fact check who the person was, didn't know who the person was, and then like.
Just I mean I have to say, like justice for Walt here, because like, how is he going to fact check Katie de toopolss is a little piece of shit? Right?
Like no, I mean you could just google Katie to topless and they'd.
Be like wow Alden seeing oh she is a former reporter at BuzzFeed, she probably works like that makes me chicks out.
She's gone on the dark side. I guess, Okay, maybe he did. You're right, Okay, no reason.
For him to know that, Like I'm a gremlin who likes fucking around, you know.
Yeah, yeah, did you feel you were in danger at any point? Did you feel like it had gotten so?
I think it was a mix of Like part of what I felt bad about is like I was dunking, like the dunk. I mean it wasn't even a dunk, right, Like it was upsetting people whose viewpoints I agree with, right, Like people who are like I don't want Nazis on my platform, and this upsets me.
I'm like, yeah, I agree, like and.
So well, that's the point. That's the joke.
Sometimes there are people who are being like a little too like gullible and earnest about it, but also like.
No, I get it, I get it, But like the problem is the reason why it penetrated and the reason why people were upset is because it sounds exactly like something that some fucking editor in chief of Threads hired by Mark Zuckerberg and Adamasiri might actually say.
And like that's the thing.
It struck a nerve both internally, I'm sure ed Metta, and also with the audience because it rang true and and and by the way, I'm not saying you shouldn't have killed the joke. That makes a lot of sense, but I think what is more telling is it rang so true and so many people reacted in earnest to it, and that's not an accident. And I actually think like at the heart of your joke, which obviously was you ultimately and I know for a fact you had no ulterior motive of doing anything smart or.
You know interesting.
I know that I know I know you well enough to know that you were just fucking around and being funny and thought it was like a good gag.
But like the at the heart of it, what it really exposes.
Is like the actual underlying bullshit of these platforms and and like in a way like was it's the most effective possible critique of their shit. I mean, you know, people are always like comedians are the modern day philosophers. But you know, I think like you're your like parody or whatever worked because people think it's completely reasonable that that's what a representative of Threads would say, and that's actually like a Mark Zuckerberg problem that like they have yet to really effectively solve.
So yeah, you know, and to be perfectly fair, also, I mean, like I you know, I did think I was being like a little bit smart.
And cheeky, but I will also say that I feel like I was old.
Look kay, I mean I'm not saying it wasn't clever, but I'm just saying, like, I don't think you were like trying to make a major point about like society or anything.
I think I saw that like my eight friends would think it was pretty funny, and they did, and they did anyway, So yeah, So then I think the next day my plan to get out of it was I said, you know, oh boy, I have an unscheduled meeting in my calendar to meet with Mark this morning, so.
Excited to go and see what the big boss.
Says, and then you know, thirty minutes later, I said, oh my god, I can't believe this, but I've been fired.
You played out who the whole narrative.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun for me.
I'll tell you something.
Your thing that you were doing was one of the few things in the early days of Threads that really made me feel like this could work. I was like, oh, like, Katie's doing her thing and everybody's kind of like reacting to it, and we're all, like, you know, where most of us are in on the joke, some of us are not, But like, it just felt like weird, you know, it felt like weird Twitter. It felt like like, you know, the kind of shit that goes on where it's it's loose, you know, and like it's posting. But honestly, like, you know, I don't see a lot of that on Threads. I don't see a lot of anything of like sparks, any kind of real like delight.
At this point.
Yeah, I mean, Threads has definitely.
I mean, all the indicators showed that, you know, it's been dropping and users. Although it's hard, I don't know, I still check it multiple times a day.
Yeah, I'm looking at threads like on a more regular basis than I'm looking at Twitter.
Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know, it's I think it's still like hard to say what will happen. Like it's not a surprise that people who came for the first day to like be like, oh my favorite Hollywood celebrities and Instagram influencers are on here, and then of course those people sort of dropped off off like and are active. I think the question is how many people will stick around who were like I've never been on Twitter, or like maybe I joined Twitter once and smith like I left, but hey, goods, thing is kind of fun. And how many people are like I'm on Twitter and I hate it, So what is this a good place for me to go instead? You know, Like yeah, I think between those two things, like there's it's kind of it's you know, I think it's still got a chance.
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing about it is, you know, not that we can really know what the future holds, but just seems like the the value of it and the utility of it is just going down and down. The question is like can I mean, to me, it's like can the threads app figure out some of the basic things that people want who are migrating or who want to use something else, which is like I need to find all the people that like I want to follow, and they need to be able to find me, like the real people that I follow. Not like no diss to my Instagram folks, but like that graph is not reflective of like who I.
Want for like information and jokes.
It's more like things I like to look at or family members who I want to see, like pictures of like they're like what they're doing on vacation or their.
Kids or whatever. You know what I mean.
It's not like, Yeah, it's definitely a different use case, and like I think they need to have some solution to that, and they need to have some solution to making it feel like there's an active, real time conversation going on. One other thing I think actually kind of sucks. It's like Twitter tells you when there's new posts, like it's like there's new posts and you're like, oh shit, I gotta check those out.
Yeah, Threads doesn't seem to do that.
When I can tell like if you sit on threads and just like check out what's going on, it doesn't like prompt you to.
I mean that actually feels like something that might be intentional, Like I feel like that's sort of like we want to make this a healthy place. It doesn't make you feel like you're like addicted and have to refresh constant.
Well, then it won't work. You need to be addicted. That's the whole point of this type of service.
I believe that they are working on more product features that will address a lot of the.
Complaints that people have right now.
I think the thing is like they clearly launched is such a bare boe owned version that it may have actually been a turn off to a fair amount of people, because you know, when you launched it as a like you couldn't even see like just a following feed.
It was like it was only the sort of four year yeah right.
I Mean the funny thing is like had they waited a few more weeks finished out those extra features they were working on, Elon would have done something justice.
There's no shortage, Yes, there's no shortage of stupid shit that guy's going to come up with.
I mean I think that, like, I think the idea that they had to jump on that timing of like oh, shit like Twitter's down, like let's get our replacement thing out right away.
It is like people still would have.
Liked it because Twitter is still just as fucked up and you know, even worse.
Yeah, I mean it's all bad.
I do think, you know, not to not to be a downer or whatever, but I do feel like we're just at the period of like the social media thing has just become so such a chore and so like un fun. I find more than anything, like what is just bums me out is there was a period, a pretty long period where at least for my purpose, which is like funny jokes and like you know news stuff or like you know story stuff that people are like posting or talking about, it wasn't the way it is now, Like it didn't feel that way.
It wasn't always combat.
Yes, there would be like the character of the day or whatever, but that was like one person, not everybody was like in the site, you know, it really wasn't even that fucking popular, like by comparison to an Instagram or a Facebook or like I think they're like fucking TikTok or snapchat.
They're all way bigger, oh way bigger. But it served a.
Purpose and it was like pretty fun most of the time. It could occasionally be horrible, but it was like fairly fun like most of the time. And then like you know, I would say, coinciding with like the Trump campaign for sure, that definitely upped the temperature on the service. And through those years I just became like really degraded in like the kind of discourse. It was just people who were made. And Elon took that in, like he took all of the anger and the vitriol and the like brokenness and the context collapse and everything and just magnified it in a way that makes it feel really shitty and like a bombery, you.
Know what it's like.
You know Ghostbusters too, I'm familiar with the film.
So you know the premise there is like there's this haunted painting of the Vigo.
It's it's a it's a painting of a guy named Vigo.
Yeah, I think his name is like Vigo the Destroyer or Vigo the Annihilator or something.
And he's a sort of you know I've in the terrible type historical persona or whatever, and and he is, you know, a haunted ghost and he his power. He grows more and more powerful by feeding off hate and anger. And you know, it just so happens his painting has come to the met in New York City and there's this sort of great scene where it's like the subways are just flowing with this pink slime and it's like, oh, it's because everyone, you know, New York City is so angry, like all the time, cabs honking or whatever. Yeah, I feel like that's you know, that's kind of a metaphor for Elon Musk and Twitter is like feeding off this.
I agree.
And by the way, the guy's name is Vigo the Carpathian. That's the name of the of the painting. Yeah.
Anyhow, but I'll tell.
You what, Josh, I feel both similar and different to you.
And here's how.
Okay, I too mourn the loss of Twitter. I loved Twitter, like it was so much.
Twitter was your home. Twitter was your playground.
Well, I think a.
Lot of people enjoyed it when it was good, right, I agree, a lot of really when you think when you remember all the fun times we had on there, right, Like it was a great place to be for like jokes and like it was a really useful place for news, Like if there was like a breaking I remember, like it was really useful in Hurricane Sandy.
Like yeah, no, I mean there was real there were real time moments on Twitter that were really quite valuable.
Yeah, and like there was a lot, like there were a lot of like really fun things, and I like I really enjoyed having wonderful, positive connections with other people and like that was great, and I like, I, like you am sad that it is like kind of going. I don't know if it's not gonna shut down tomorrow, but like it's not that anymore. It's not the fun, delightful place. A lot of the people that I enjoyed communicating with have already left. It's you know, it's not as much fun. Like fifty percent of the tweets on there are about Twitter or X. However, I think, unlike you, I feel like I have some optimism because I feel like the demise of Twitter and like sort of as you described, like the end of a sort of social media moment where it's like Facebook has stunk for a long time, and like I think a lot of people have Instagram fatigued too, and like I watch a ton of TikTok, but it's nothing that like my friends were.
Using right now talk is it for me?
It's a it's a solitary.
Yes, it's a private You're not sharing, you're not fucking reposting, you're not responding, You're just experiencing the TikTok.
It's pure consumption. I enjoy it, but I feel like there's no there's not much social going on there for me at least. Yes, but I do think that like this has left an opening for something new, and I do think that, like, I think there's reasons to be optimistic about.
What new is next.
You know, Wow, the idea of replacements for Twitter that are you know, conceivably smaller, like blue Sky massed on even Threads.
Yeah, I mean this is spoken like spoken like the future editor in chief of some social network.
I have to say this is the mark I'm available for hire.
I mean, look, I'll I'll say this, and then we got Unfortunately, we do have to wrap up.
As much as I'm enjoying this.
The biggest mistake they made was not hiring you immediately to actually be the editor in chief of Threads. In my opinion, the greatest move in the world would have been for them to immediately be like let's do it.
Let's hire Katie. And also, by the.
Way, I think I for a moment I was like, what if they have to say face and I'm right, no, But like, I don't think that's a job I would want.
I do think you would bring a lot of great insight and ideas into a place like that. And frankly, like I think a service like and not by the way, I'm not like making a pitch for you, but like a service like Threads would be better for having a person like you there who actually like knows why things like threads the way it could be, like why it's good because I don't think a lot I think there's a lot of people there who don't didn't ever really get or care about Twitter, who are like, we build a thing that's kind of like it. It's like yeah, but like you maybe don't actually understand some of the key things that make it useful and interesting anyhow. But Katie, as always, I have just tremendously enjoyed our conversation. Unquestionably, you're one of my favorite people to talk to. And I'm not just saying that because you are the mother of my of my niece and nephew. It's also because you're a genius, a great genius. But it is a nice perk that you're the mother of my niece and nephew. I think they're pretty cool, and I think it's a pretty cool situation all things considered.
All things considered, it is, Josh. You are also one of my favorite people. Thank you to You are one of the only people in my family who actually appreciated my threads prank.
Oh well, anybody who anybody, including Eric who didn't fully appreciate. I could see Eric being like, you, guys, stop guy, knock that off, like you probably getting very upset about it.
But I like rolling his eyes a little bit.
Right, I mean, I can't imagine what it's like to be dealing with you on a twenty four to seven basis when it comes to your like present.
The problem is it's exactly what you would imagine, which is incredibly annoying for Eric, my husband, which is that like it's it's me on my phone giggling to myself and it's just like.
And then like I assume at some point you're like, oh, like I'm getting death threats or whatever, because like right, because that definitely has happened on more than one to you.
There was only one point where he was like, do we still lock the doors?
Like you up?
I lock it up. I lock it up.
You should get some home alone style traps around your house just in case. You never know when these guys are going to try to go bust in there, you have to hit them with some paint cans or whatever.
Yeah, exactly all right, Katie.
Anyhow, thank you for joining me, and I expect that you'll be back soon to tell us of your new adventures online.
No response to that, thanks Joss you around.
Well, that is our show for this week, and I think what more can be said? I think Katie has said it all, and then I said a little bit extra to so I guess there could be more said.
But you know, I think we're good now. I think we've said it all.
We'll be back next week with more what future, and as always, I wish you and your family the very best
