Threads, a social networking program that competes with Twitter, is a game changer.
Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, unveiled the new platform ahead of schedule yesterday. Threads drew almost instant acclaim, particularly from a crowd of Twitter fans who watched in dismay as their favorite site fell apart in the hands of Elon Musk.
Threads got 30 million users in less than 24 hours. Threads’ user base will develop quickly, as Meta already has over two billion Instagram users who can link their profiles right away.
Mark Zuckerberg celebrated 30 million new Threads users with a post.
The parallels between Threads and Twitter are clear, with its simple black-and-white feeds and features that let you react, love, quote, and comment on other people’s “threads.”
we’ve been here before
Twitter Users watched helplessly as Elon Musk was appointed CEO in October last year. The first “escape plan” was Mastodon. Many users, however, found their decentralized servers cumbersome and cumbersome to use, and each had drastically different communities and content policies.
Many Twitter users set up “backup” Mastodon accounts in case Twitter crashed, and waited to see what Musk would do next. The wait was brief. When Musk started laying off Twitter employees (he has now laid off more than 80% of Twitter’s original workers), platform instability and outages became regular.
Soon after, Musk shocked users and made headlines by changing Twitter’s verification system and charging “blue tick” holders for the right of authentication. This allowed for the impersonation of accounts and the widespread spread of false information. Some major corporate brands left the network, taking their ad dollars with them.
Musk has referred to reliable news organizations like the BBC as “state-owned” outlets, until public outrage forced him to back down. Recently, he began limiting the number of tweets consumers could access and claimed that TweetDeck (a tweet scheduling management tool) would be restricted to paying subscribers.
Twitter users have experimented with a variety of alternatives, including Spoutible and Post. Bluesky, founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is gaining ground, though its expansion has been hampered by its invite-only signup process.
Nothing had really captured the attention of Twitter users… until now.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Oprah Winfrey, the Dalai Lama, Shakira, Gordon Ramsay and Ellen DeGeneres are among those who have joined Threads.
Twitter was a huge success before Musk took over. It has long served as a forum for journalists, politicians, academics, and the general public to discuss current events. Twitter provided real-time assistance in times of crisis. Users have shared information and made lifesaving decisions during some of the greatest calamities.
While there were problems, such as trolls, bots, and online abuse, the verification procedure and Twitter’s ability to ban and report inappropriate information were critical to the company’s success in creating a thriving community.
This is also what sets Threads apart from its competitors. By connecting Threads to Instagram, Meta has given itself a huge head start by gaining the critical mass of people required to establish itself as a prominent platform (a benefit Mastodon did not have).
Thread users can not only keep their identities, but they can also keep their Instagram followers. Threads’ ability to retain the community in an app that provides a Twitter-like experience makes it the most serious threat yet.
According to my research, when it comes to learning online, people crave more for authority, authenticity, and community. My coauthors Donald O. Case, Rebekah Willson, and I explain how consumers seek information from sources they know and trust in our new book.
Twitter fans want an alternative network with similar capabilities, but more importantly, they want to discover “their people” right away. They do not want to rebuild their communities. This is probably why so many people have stuck with Twitter despite Musk’s efforts to run it.
challenges ahead
Twitter users may also be worried about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Signing up for another Meta app poses its own set of problems.
Readers of the fine print on New Threads will note that your information will be used to “personalize ads and other experiences” on both sites. Users have also pointed out that you can deactivate your Threads account only if you also delete your Instagram account.
This type of entrenchment can be repulsive to some.
In addition, due to regulatory issues, Meta decided yesterday not to release Threads anywhere in the European Union. Threads may face significant hurdles as a result of the new EU Digital Market Law.
The law, for example, states that organizations may not “trace end users outside of [their] central platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising, unless effective consent has been given.” This may be a violation of Threads’ privacy policies.
Meta has also revealed plans to transition Threads to a decentralized architecture in the future. “Future versions of Threads will work with fediverse,” according to the “How Threads Works” section of the app, allowing “people to follow and interact with each other on different platforms, including Mastodon.”
This means that users with non-Meta accounts will be able to access and interact with Threads content without having to register with Threads. So threads can work in the same way as WordPress, Mastodon and email servers, using the ActivityPub standard (which facilitates decentralized interop between platforms).
It is unclear when and how Threads will implement its decentralized engagement strategy and how this will affect user experiences.
Meta stole ‘trade secrets’?
Musk, on the other hand, is not going down without a fight. Twitter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, issued a letter accusing Meta of “unlawful” and “systematic” misappropriation of trade secrets just hours after Threads was posted.
According to the letter, former Twitter employees employed by Meta were “deliberately assigned” to “develop Meta’s ‘Threads’ app in a matter of months.” According to sources, Meta has denied these claims, but the competition between the two corporations appears to be far from over.
(Author:Lisa M. Given, Professor of Information Sciences and Director, Impact Platform for Enabling Social Change, RMIT University)
(Disclosure statement: Lisa M. Given is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. She receives funding from the Research Council of Australia and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada)
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Categories: Technology
Source: vtt.edu.vn