Reviewing the Threads vs. Twitter launch narrative one week in

The Big Story is signups.

Numbers and more numbers as the media reiterates how many users sign-up based on Meta’s data. Starting with 10 Million users, then 30 million, then 70 million, now past 100 millon? signups, the next set of increments worth reporting will bear watching. The Meta reported sign-up data is apparently aimed at advertisers and the general public through a media that is easy prey for a story that combines simple math with a feud narrative that started before Threads with the Cage Match story.?

Ain’t no room for two of us in this town?

Reporting tends to see this as a zero-sum outcome. Threads’ ascent is portrayed as coming at the expense of Twitter, widely reported as “tanking,” based on a website traffic quote from the Cloudflare CEO. Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino disagreed, saying that the launch week of Threads marked a recent Twitter high for “usage.”???

Advertisers will have to decide whose content they want to associate themselves with.??

Even as signup numbers for Threads rocketed up, content quality and content policy narrative is the keystone for advertisers deciding on the preferred platform for the big national and international brand names. The early content narrative came largely from the political right that suggests Meta is a censored platform of captured interests when compared to the independent free speech ethos (infamously praised by a Taliban apparatchik) that purportedly pervades the new Twitter. Twitter, also, is seen as a haven for seedy porn.??

The discourse includes questions just what Threads will do to moderate the platform to exclude hate speech, the promotion of disinformation, and meddling by foreign propaganda trolls while maintaining an open door policy to legitimate views. Meta’s track record, unfortunately, is not well perceived.?

Musk, Zuck, and big bucks

If our trend graph included mentions of Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, it would contain the most mentions making everything else look tiny. (This even with Meta’s efforts to bring Instagram boss Adam Mossieri front and center.)? It was left out as an editorial decision to bring your attention to the issues trend. Here it is in a pie chart.

There was much overlapping between each principal owners’ name me and our other categories. But a big chunk is comparing billionaires and which sides the posters lined up on. This narrative emphasized much that is wrong with the toxic male/ tech-bro culture. For now all I’ll say is that much of it has been mean and sexualized and especially from Team Musk. Otherwise, let’s start with the ironically ambivalent as seen on Reddit.

Mr. Zuckerberg is, of course, infamously disliked for Meta’s naked monetization of personally user data?and algorithmic targeting of vulnerable audiences with low quality content. Mr. Musk has fallen in the popular imagination from entrepreneurial genius to angry loser. In comparison, Mr. Zuckerberg has become an angel by comparison, even though Meta platforms were also said to profit from “misinformation and Nazi rhetoric.” Nonetheless, it appears that Mr. Zuckerberg holds a soft edge in the *the enemy of my enemy is my friend* department.?

The Thread’s story is just beginning as the Twitter story continues along its twists and turns that few could have foreseen. Mr. Musk bought Twitter, he said, because he could turn it into an “everything app.” So far that’s not working out and his content policy is, frankly, spooky.?

What we’ll be looking for:

• How the Threads user experience evolves.?
• How the ActivityPub federation goes and specifically how it might integrate with the Mastodon service. If you’re familiar with Mastodon, there’s plenty of debate within instances if they should federate with @threads.net. It is a minor discussion now, but I believe it is overlooked, especially if it is taken in context with Meta’s open metaverse plans.?
• What Twitter will do. They are in a strange, strange place now. Goodwill is crumbling. I don’t know how goodwill could be reconstituted unless Mr. Musk somehow finds a way to make sincere amends (to the horror of his base)? or dissociates himself from Twitter operations.?
• Looking at these trends, along with the all important content quality trends, as well as whatever else may emerge, will likely answer our questions and bring up many new ones as Meta and Twitter roll, or bumble, along.

Eric Michelson

[email protected]

Acknowledgements: Appreciation to YouScan Social Listening ? This social media platform has interesting features and unique data coverage.