Will Threads win the race to become the next Twitter?
Meta’s Threads, an app ‘for sharing text updates’, reached 100 million users less than one week after its inception. Will it stick around – or has the quest of finding Twitter’s successor become too arduous for users to follow?
Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022, discontent has spread among its users. There have been major redundancies in crucial areas like content moderation, glitches that have forced advertisers to abandon the platform, and unpopular measures – like allowing unverified accounts to view just 600 posts a day – have been introduced. These changes and missteps have left many of Twitter's users searching for a new home. Decentralised open-source platform Mastodon emerged as an early competitor, followed by Bluesky, which is backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Substack’s Notes, and Spill – a visual-based platform where users can share GIFs and images with up to 90 characters of text overlay.
Within this context, Meta’s Threads has one clear advantage – new accounts are linked to Instagram, allowing users to keep their profile information and retain followers. Not having to start from scratch is a significant draw for influencers and media personalities who rely on their following for outreach and income. However, supplanting Twitter will not be simple, with many concerned about Big Tech’s privacy practices. This is amplified by the fact that Threads cannot yet launch in the EU because of data privacy regulations. In the US, just 25% of Instagram users and 18% of Facebook users trust the platforms to protect their privacy and data – something that doesn’t bode well for Meta. Moreover, transitioning people’s Instagram identities to a Twitter-like format may not be desirable, especially for Gen Zers who are moving away from personalisation and towards a sense of plurality and identity fluency. Threads does, however, highlight a potential shift towards a more integrated vision of the internet. In the future, the app aims to let users follow Mastodon discussions and other services that adopt the decentralised social networking protocol, ActivityPub. As such, different platforms will no longer be walled gardens, which could usher in an entirely new era of social media.
