Theme:
- On 6th July 2023, Meta launched the Threads app in more than 100 countries. Within a day of its launch, 5 crore users joined the app.
- Threads is a text-based public conversations platform just like Twitter.
Will Threads kill Twitter?
- At present, Twitter has 35 crore users approximately. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, many changes were brought to the platform. The main changes are monthly subscriptions for blue tick verification and a drastic reduction in the number of content moderation employees. This led to a rise in the number of fake profiles and misleading content on the platform. Recently Twitter announced the limit of reading 300 tweets per day as a temporary move. Approximately half of the advertisers left the platform since Elon Musk took over Twitter. Users and advertisers are looking for an alternative platform for text-based public conversations. So, the downfall of Twitter is a big advantage for the Threads app since it was launched at the right time.
- Instagram and Threads are owned by the same company, Meta. So, it is very easy to join Threads with an Instagram account. All the profile details and followers can be imported to the Threads account from Instagram. At present, Instagram has more than 200 crore users. So, there is a possibility that the number of users for the Threads platform will cross the number of Twitter users (35 crores approx).
- Threads has several advantages over Twitter such as having the cross-posting feature, which means the posts on Threads can be seamlessly shared on other social media platforms, the ability to share up to 500 letters in posts when compared with 280 letters in Twitter posts, giving more control to users etc.
- Right now, Threads is not serving ads. So, the clean user interface without ads can encourage more users to join the platform.
- Building users from zero, scaling up the app as the number of users grows and managing content moderation at such a large scale is not that easy. As Meta already has more than 200 crores of Instagram users and the existing infrastructure to handle everything, the Thread app can easily reach more people and thereby can overtake Twitter.
Disadvantages of Threads app:
- It is mentioned on the app store that Threads can collect personal information such as health, finances, contacts, browsing, location and search histories, purchases etc. This raises privacy concerns and that’s why it was not launched in European Union yet due to stricter privacy laws in the EU. If Threads will not fix privacy concerns, it can become a big disadvantage for the app.
- Elon Musk threatened legal action against Meta as the Threads app since it is a look-alike of the Twitter platform. This may result in a long legal battle.
Conclusion:
The recent changes on Twitter since Elon Musk took over the platform can be the main reason why millions of users are joining the Threads platform. So, the downfall of Twitter already started much before the launch of Threads. Now the launch of the Threads app can speed up the downfall of Twitter. If Twitter does not take drastic steps to prevent its users from leaving, Threads can eventually kill Twitter.
Photo by Keira Burton
Your Turn…
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