Talk about chutzpah! Or is it theft? Mark Zuckerberg isn’t scared of copying his rivals. He’s done it to TikTok (with Instagram Reels) and to Snapchat (with Instagram Stories and WhatsApp Status). Now he’s doing it to Twitter with Threads — and Twitter’s proprietor, Elon Musk, is not amused.
Threads, an offshoot of photo-sharing social network Instagram, raced to 100-million sign-ups in a matter of days last week after Meta Platforms — the holding company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, led by Zuckerberg — rushed it to market.
And, boy, does it look rushed. Threads is not a finished product, it looks like pre-release software. There are no direct messages, no hashtags and, worst of all, no web version — for now, you must access Threads on a smartphone.
Why the hurry? It’s likely Zuckerberg decided to launch now to take advantage of the chaos Musk has unleashed at Twitter, whose users are becoming increasingly irritated at the capriciousness with which the world’s richest person is “running” the company.
Musk’s recent decision to place “rate limits” on Twitter users’ feeds — imposed, he said, to stop artificial intelligence start-ups from scraping the social network’s data — must rank as one of the dumbest business decisions in history. Twitter, like any social media company, relies on attracting eyeballs to sell advertising. By rate-limiting its users, he is not only infuriating the platform’s biggest users but also risking the ire of brands that pay good money to place their ads in users’ timelines. Why would they advertise if users can’t access their feeds because they’ve been rate-limited?
Some people have speculated that the real reason for the limits is that Twitter has run out of money. Recent news reports that Twitter failed to pay its server bills to Google timeously lend some credence to this argument.
Zuckerberg knew he had a window of opportunity to act — and act he did.
Yet, even with the rapid sign-ups after launch, Threads’ success is not assured. It’ll be a few months before the world gets a clear picture of what the platform will become. Will it be a Twitter clone, with users of that platform shifting en masse, or will it have a different tone?
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri told The New York Times that Threads aims to focus on “lighter subjects” such as sports, music, design and fashion rather than politics and hard news. Zuckerberg has called it a “friendly” alternative to the more adversarial Twitter.
Let’s see how that works out. Already, Meta has come under fire for censoring some posts. And its launch comes just as the US is gearing up for what could be one of the most polarising elections in history: a potential rerun of Donald Trump vs Joe Biden. The decisions Meta makes about what to allow and what not to allow ahead of the November 2024 matchup will determine what Threads becomes. Could it morph into a platform for the Left, while Twitter appeals more to those on the political Right? Perhaps.
By launching on Instagram, Zuckerberg ensured there was a captive audience. Instagram has 2.3-billion active users, so it’s no wonder Threads has become the fastest-growing social network in history
Whatever happens, Zuckerberg has been boxing smart so far. Legal experts say Musk, who has accused Meta of “cheating” and poaching staff from Twitter to launch Threads (denied by Meta), is unlikely to win in court, even though he has threatened to sue. And by launching on Instagram — you need an Instagram account to sign up for Threads — Zuckerberg ensured there was a captive audience. Instagram has 2.3-billion active users, so it’s no wonder Threads has become the fastest-growing social network in history.
But Meta has been particularly clever with another wrinkle: Threads will soon be interoperable with Mastodon, the software that allows internet users to create their own Twitter-style social media networks where they decide the rules, not Meta or Twitter or any other tech company. Already, there are more than 7,500 Mastodon servers, and the number is growing quickly. Soon Threads users will, in theory, be able to communicate with any other user in the “fediverse”, the term for the federation of interconnected servers.
This federalisation may be the future of social media, and Zuckerberg is dipping his toes in early. It may also be an intermediate step to a future, a few short years from now, where users regain control over their data and what they are willing to share. Trusted third-party apps that store users’ confidential information in a secure enclave on their phones, handing over this information only with their strict say-so, must be the future.
Zuckerberg deserves credit for making Threads interoperable with the fediverse. There is some risk involved — it’s expanding beyond its traditional “walled garden” approach, allowing users on Threads to interact with those using other platforms — but it’s the right approach, and one that Twitter should take to heart (but probably won’t).
Still, Zuckerberg’s decision to embrace the fediverse could help break down the barriers between social networks and create a more open and connected internet.
While Musk continues to inflict own goals on Twitter — the platform could easily become the next Yahoo or MySpace — his rival at Meta is starting to experiment with what comes next in social media.
* McLeod is editor of TechCentral
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.