As a Twitter addict, I’ve been worried by Elon Musk. As the platform’s presiding spirit, he is paywalling crucial aspects of the app, boosting paying users in the algorithm, removing content moderation safeguards, messing with link-sharing, and at times—like this weekend—making the social media platform utterly unusable.
Luckily, if I ever want to leave behind my beloved Twitter, there are plenty of alternatives. And so I became one of the 5 million or so people to sign up for Threads, the new Twitter-killer from Meta, within four hours of its launch. That statistic comes from Mark Zuckerberg himself, and it’s impressive: none of the other alt-Twitters, which have been around for much longer, have managed to drum up as many active users.
I spent a few hours on the Threads app on Wednesday night and was struck by its sleek design and intuitive functionality. This ease of use owes much to Twitter, which has schooled us so well in its interface and features—the Like, the Retweet, the Follow—that Threads felt compelled to clone them. Additionally, the disorder of modern-day Twitter is absent: no warnings that you’ve hit your daily viewing limit, and no glut of ads.
I was able to find my friends fairly easily. But some essential elements are missing. At the moment, Threads offers only an algorithmic feed, the equivalent of Twitter’s much-detested For You; there is no option to only see posts from people you follow. Threads also offers no direct messaging or search feature, and it doesn’t appear to use hashtags, that ingenious tool to aggregate and comb through posts on particular topics.
While Twitter has proven shockingly easy to clone, porting over the habits of users and entire communities has eluded its competitors until now. But with roughly half of the world’s population signed up to its various platforms, Meta has the network effects to give Twitter a run for its money. It seems very conceivable that Threads will pose a real, lasting challenge to Twitter’s dominance.
Meta is used to cloning its competitors
Meta is no stranger to cloning its competitors’ ideas and selling them to users like its own. After failing to buy Snapchat in 2013, the company—then called Facebook—took Snapchat’s successful Stories feature, allowing users to post a picture or video that disappears a day later. More recently, Meta built Reels, a TikTok-like infinite scroll of videos—a clear knock-off that got integrated directly into Instagram and Facebook.
This talent for mimicry is especially useful now, as antitrust regulators appear ready to pounce upon Big Tech acquisitions. In that kind of environment, building something new is Meta’s best option for innovation—even if it means directly copying the competition.
“Twitter hasn’t nailed it”
Zuckerberg isn’t trying to mask what he’s done. “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversation with 1 billion+ people on it,” he posted to Threads on Wednesday night, shortly after letting the masses through the app’s doors. “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”
He also posted on Twitter for the first time since 2012: the well-worn meme of two duplicate Spider-Men pointing at each other. Musk, who has agreed to fight Zuckerberg in a forthcoming cage fight, did not immediately tweet about Threads.
One immediate problem for Zuckerberg, however, is that Threads won’t launch in Europe at least until Meta’s scuffle with EU regulators is resolved. If Meta can’t get Europe online, Threads won’t stand a chance.
Why does Meta want to clone Twitter?
But why does Zuckerberg want to get into the Twitter business at all? Twitter, after all, has never been wildly successful, and advertisers have long preferred Facebook and Instagram for their large audiences and ad-targeting tools, compared to Twitter’s smaller community and its highly politicized discourse.
But Twitter does (or did) have some things going for it. The site is on-the-news in a way that is constantly culturally relevant. It boasts influential users like celebrities, academics, and journalists. Tweets seem to get re-posted on every other social media app in a singular way.
But perhaps most importantly for Zuckerberg, every minute spent on Twitter—or one of its other rivals—is a minute not spent inside Meta’s walled garden. So why not go after Twitter? Your move, Musk.