Meta's Threads app attracts disillusioned Twitter users, influencers, others

New York: To engage with their followers, celebrities, politicians, brands, and regular social media users are drawn into Meta's recently launched app Threads, including many Twitter refugees weary of the controversy surrounding Elon Musk's raucous management of that platform.

But the real question is, will they stay?

Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, stated in a Threads post on Monday that 100 million users have registered for Threads, a companion app to Instagram, in the five days since it launched.

One of them is Ann Coleman. The Baltimore-based 50-year-old claimed that she signed up for Threads after learning about the platform from a comedian she follows on social media. She claimed to love Twitter and use it regularly for more than ten years. There, she even met her husband, Associated Press reported.

But because of Musk's political views and the modifications he's made to Twitter, like upending its verification system, Coleman, who is politically progressive, has been looking to migrate to a new site. She had already signed up for the decentralised social network Mastodon, but she had trouble navigating it.

Though she expressed her appreciation for Threads, she wished she could quickly follow all of her Twitter connections there. It is simpler for active Instagram users to recreate the same level of engagement on Threads because Threads users have the choice to automatically follow the same profiles they do on the photo-sharing app. However, those who are starting from scratch will have to put in more effort.

“If I’m going to leave Twitter entirely, I’m going to have to try and find some of these people” from Twitter, Coleman said.

She acknowledged having her own worries about Meta, citing among other things the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, but added that “it’s not with depth of concern that I do with Musk.”

Michael Evancoe, 28, said he hasn't used Twitter much since it suspended his personal page for what the social media site said were spam policy violations years ago. Evancoe, who is currently employed in production, said he supports some of the changes Musk has made to Twitter and that's why he opened a new account earlier this year. But he struggled to attract many fans or contacts.

He recently joined Threads and claims that it has allowed him to communicate with users more. He does, however, hope that Meta would not moderate the platform in an overly aggressive manner.

“I think that would be a deterrent to both interest and engagement as well,” Evancoe said.

Meta has stated that it will moderate in accordance with Instagram's content policies. Some officials have indicated that the business's goal is not to replace Twitter but rather to provide something more appealing to a wide range of users. Over the past few days, the company has been promoting the much-hyped site as a new digital town square that is a less toxic version of Twitter.

“The goal is to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations,” Mosseri said Friday.

According to the web analytics firm SimilarWeb, Twitter traffic decreased by 5% from the same period last week and by 11% from the same period a year ago in the first two full days that Threads was widely available, which were Thursday and Friday of last week. However, it also noted that despite the absence of Threads, total Twitter traffic has decreased.

According to Jennifer Billinson, a professor of media studies at Nazareth University in New York, the early days of Threads have drawn attention to a potential culture conflict, notably one between Twitter refugees and what is likely a considerably greater number of users who are just switching over from Instagram.

The notion that Threads will simply turn into a Twitter clone, according to her, is colliding head-on with the fact that Instagram users, who have more than 2 billion monthly users, will "vastly outnumber" Twitter users on the new network. According to the most recent data from the company's financial report from the previous year, Twitter has more than 237 million daily users.

Among other things, people accustomed to Twitter's more aggressive culture may be easily irritated by Instagram users who are more laid-back. Undoubtedly, any platform modifications that give users greater control over what appears in their Threads feed would help to ease these tensions. The Threads algorithm currently has consumers largely at its mercy.

Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer at the creative agency Mekanism, emphasised that it is still too early to predict Threads' level of success despite the surge in users. He goes on to question if Threads' explosive expansion is even a positive thing, pointing out that numerous other successful platforms started with a focused emphasis before growing more gradually.

The usage of Threads by influencers and their ability to maintain the same following as on other platforms are other open questions. Most notably, MrBeast, a well-known YouTube video creator, Jimmy Donaldson, has more than 4 million followers on Threads already.

Meta makes it very simple for content producers to switch their Instagram followers to Threads followers by integrating the new app with Instagram. However, Gahan warned that it may also lead to a situation in which established content producers gain greater power while preventing up-and-coming artists from developing their own culture on a new platform.

There may be additional difficulties for creators.

“Somebody who is purely video and photo-based may have trouble translating to a text-focused platform,” Gahan said. “That said, a lot of them I see reposting the same content. Time will tell whether or not that’s a successful strategy.”

Asante Madrigal, a content producer who relies on social media posts on pop culture for a livelihood, said he's been using the Threads app and reposting some recent videos he's made, including one on the actress Keke Palmer.

However, the 22-year-old claimed that for the time being, he does not intend to make Threads a priority because he cannot monetise his stuff there. Instead, he stated that he would concentrate on the apps where he is actually making money, such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, where he has a combined following of over 2 million users.

In addition to pointing out several features that are currently missing from the app, such as hashtags and direct chat between users, Madrigal claimed that the Threads algorithm is a "black box." Additionally, figuring out what to do there will require extra effort.

“I have a lot of friends that do pop culture as well,” Madrigal said. “And they were just like, ‘Oh, my God, not another app’.”