How does Threads, Twitter’s competitor, work? – 7/9/2023 – Ronaldo Lemos

The subject that stole the tech spotlight last week was the sudden launch of Threads, Meta’s new platform that competes with Twitter. In three days the platform reached 80 million users, taking the lead as the fastest growing app to date. The previous lead was ChatGPT, which got 100 million, but it took two months to do so.

What’s the secret of success? Threads was catapulted by Instagram, an application that has 500 million active users every day. In other words, Meta used the dominance of Instagram and knew how to take advantage of the moment of frustration with Twitter. Elon Musk’s platform has been closing down and making increasingly erratic decisions. It even set a reading limit of 1,000 tweets per day for non-payers. A meme that circulated on the networks showed a child with a saucer in his hand pleading with Musk: “Sir, can I read just one more tweet please?”.

But after all, what are Threads’ bets to work out? Right off the bat there’s a lot of frustrating stuff. Starting with the fact that there is no search in the application. One of the greatest uses of Twitter is precisely the ability to search for any word or subject and see what is being discussed in real time. Threads in its current version disappeared with this possibility. It also disappeared with the “trending topics”, which show the hottest subjects and with the famous hashtags. This makes the platform closed to users and research.

Threads bet it all on a single feed governed absolutly by the algorithm. There is no way for the user to see posts only from the people he follows, nor to view a feed in chronological order. It’s the platform’s algorithm that decides what you’re going to see. At this point Threads uses the TikTok formula. It doesn’t matter who you follow. The algorithm will analyze what captures your attention and will put in front of you posts even from people you don’t follow. Everything to try to maximize your permanence on the platform.

Threads’ most sophisticated move concerns content moderation. Twitter in the Musk era has been selling itself as a free speech haven. Threads will apply Meta content moderation rules, such as Instagram and Facebook. However, in a shock decision, Threads has adopted an open protocol for its publications. It joined the standard created by Mastodon called “ActivityPub”. This protocol creates a federation of independent servers that can freely talk to each other. Each server sets its own moderation rules. Meta servers will have their rules already known. But nothing prevents users from other servers from dialoguing with Threads users and even appearing in the app’s feed. Many of these servers will have ZERO content moderation.

This adoption of the “open source” style open standard isolates Twitter and puts Musk in check. Whether it will be checkmate, we’ll see. By the way, there is another application that caused great commotion when it was launched and soon disappeared: Clubhouse. As the saying goes: success goes up the stairs, failure goes down the elevator. Will Threads be the new Clubhouse? Time will tell.

It’s over – think it is possible to have some stability as an internet influencer

Already – FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) regarding joining Threads soon

It’s coming – FOMF (Fear of Missing Followers), influencers’ fear of losing followers and influence in migrating to the new platform

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