Can Threads, the ‘friendly’ Twitter, make social media nicer?

Vincent Oriarte was one of the 30 million people who joined Threads on its first day. But after trying it, he’s unsure what innovation the platform brings to the table. “I was expecting a whole different type of format and layout completely different from Twitter. But honestly it’s really hard to see the difference because they’re just so close together.”

The latest social media platform, created by Meta – the company behind Facebook and Instagram – swept through the instant communications landscape with record-breaking speed, achieving 100 million sign-ups within five days of its July 6 launch. ChatGPT, the previous record-holder, took two months to reach that many. TikTok was nine months old when it reached that milestone. 

Threads’ rapid rise speaks to a common desire for community and connection, yet also comes amid growing discontent with the downsides of social media: hate speech, misinformation, censorship claims, and toxic comparisons to others’ carefully curated lives. While Threads may offer a fresh start to its users, asking one platform to be the light to social media’s dark side may be asking too much. Still, there may be real change, experts say, in simply having more options and fresh competition. 

Threads joins other Twitter alternatives like Bluesky and Mastodon, which give users new places to gather online and share their thoughts – decentralizing what was once a marketplace dominated by a small handful of behemoths.

“For a long time the social media ecosystem felt very stagnant, overly centralized, everyone in one place,” writes Renée DiResta, research manager for the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cyber policy center, via email. “Then a lot of users began to move into smaller groups … where they could have conversations without being concerned about trolls and spam and the other things that made big platforms like Twitter start to feel toxic.”

Twitter, which had long been the undisputed king of short-burst social media, saw a wave of both users and advertisers abandon it – or consider doing so – after billionaire Elon Musk purchased the company last year. Promoting a more free-wheeling ambience, Mr. Musk for many eroded trust in the platform.

Threads seeks to capitalize on that opening. Now Mr. Musk has threatened to sue Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg for being a “copycat,” escalating a years-long rivalry. Threads’ simple, text-centered platform allows users to also post videos, photos, and links to outside content. Just like Twitter. But Meta executives are pitching Threads as a “friendly” space and say its algorithms will prioritize lighter sports and entertainment fare rather than politics and news.

Whether Threads can maintain its vision for a kinder online arena is an open question. Meta is reportedly not bringing the fact-checking program it built to contain misinformation on Facebook and Instagram to Threads. And political content is quickly flooding onto the new platform. Threads, like Twitter, will face a difficult balancing act regulating misinformation, controversial or inciting posts, and the varied interests of users, observers say. 

“I don’t sense that there’s a radical differentiation between [Threads and Twitter] right now,” regarding governance of the platforms, says Andrew Sellars, founding director of the Technology Law Clinic at Boston University. “I think users are on pretty equal ground, which is to say they don’t have the ability to heavily influence that other than through some grand populist pressure like, ‘do this or don’t do this, or otherwise I leave the platform.’”

Threads users 

Threads comes with a catch: It’s an add-on to Instagram, a popular photo-forward platform, which means Threads users have to have an Instagram account first. 

Writer and teacher Emily Brogan likes that affiliation – her Threads timeline was instantly populated with familiar friends from Instagram. “I don’t have to go start from zero and actively find people I want to follow. It all carries over from Instagram,” she says, adding she also feels less inclined to scroll for hours on end.

Content creator Jez Deguzman also made the switch. Once an active Twitter user, he checks his Threads account at least six times a day because the content “is a lot cleaner and friendlier.” 

Ms. Brogan still enjoys Twitter, which she’s been using actively since 2011. But she’s become fed up with changes to the platform since Mr. Musk took over in October 2022. He has required users to pay for verified accounts, limited the number of posts a person sees in their feed, and temporarily removed accounts that irk him personally, drawing anger from users and drawing attention to the enormous power wielded by a handful of titans in the tech world. 

That power blurs the lines between companies and the people who run them – turning professional rivalries into personality wars. “Because a lone individual is able to more or less control how the company acts and behaves, it becomes very hard to detangle Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and Meta and Twitter,” says Mr. Sellars. 

This means that it will be very hard for people “to actually confront the power of a Zuckerberg or a Musk,” if users want major changes, Mr. Sellars says. 

Not solely “free speech vs. hate speech” 

The arrival of Threads has flared anew the debate around content moderation. But while Threads is new, it’s not novel. Ultimately, users on both platforms “still have very little control over their experience, or transparency around what is showing up in their feed,” says Ms. DiResta from Stanford, who points out the design and policy choices the companies make aren’t as binary as “free speech versus hate speech,” and moderation is more complex than “allow it or don’t.”

Users have little agency over how a platform operates, says Professor Sellars, who points to the difference between government-regulated speech and content moderation on social media. “The government, if they want to pass a law that curtails freedom of expression, usually has a very high bar,” and legislative and legal systems that allow for recourse. “No such rights exist on any of these platforms. … It’s still at the whims of these companies as to what they permit or don’t permit.”

Consumers do have the right to hit delete. Their power lies in which platforms they choose – a decision informed by where their friends and desired audiences engage. “People are looking for community and a way to connect with their friends,” Ms. DiResta says. “At its best, that’s what social media has always offered. But when people begin to feel that a platform no longer aligns with their values or the user experience gets bad, they look elsewhere.”

For companies that broker in chatter, the greatest threat is silence.

Editor's note: We have updated the name Jez Deguzman to reflect correct spelling.