Main Edition
US
FR
July 6, 2023 - 1:00pm
As Twitter flails, Facebook has made its move — or so it may seem. In the early hours of Thursday, the company, otherwise known as Meta, released Threads, its Twitter alternative. Calling it a “Twitter killer” may give Facebook too much credit, since Twitter itself is taking care of that. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has vowed to create a “friendly public space for conversation” — in other words, like what Twitter was supposed to be. Short public messages, real-time responses, Instagram and Facebook integration: what’s not to like?
Given the last 12 months of chaos at Twitter, Threads is a sensible move from Meta, yet it’s still closer to musical chairs than actual growth. Following talk of a potential cage fight between Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the new app slots neatly next to the macho posturing as another display of one-upmanship.
Facebook has not had a good few years. The company’s stock is yet to return to its 2021 peak after falling by over two-thirds, and the last few years have yielded several wildly different strategies, from secure private messaging to the VR-driven metaverse. With large language model (LLM) AI now driving tech prices skyward once again, Zuckerberg needs to keep options open in the likely event that these models fail to deliver on their hype (as Facebook’s own head of AI Yann LeCun has repeatedly said).
Taking on Twitter is, from some angles, a no-brainer. The site has slowly declined in functionality and usability since Musk’s takeover, with no apparent strategy emerging from the chaos. Amid ongoing executive turnover, collapsing ad revenues, desperate monetisation activities, and general disorder, Musk has now introduced unpopular rate limits for both writing and reading tweets due to companies “scraping vast amounts of data”.
Take it from an ex-server engineer who worked at Google and Microsoft: visibly crippling active users is not how to handle scraping, legitimate or otherwise. The whole exercise has an air of executive caprice, with Musk furious that his already unprofitable service is costing more money without benefiting him. Having severely overpaid for his plaything, he has publicly floated one unfeasible method after another to try to extract blood from the Twitter stone. None of them has a chance of working, certainly not at this point. The scraping is just adding insult to (self-)injury.
There is a bigger transition going on, though — namely, the slow death of the first generation of social media. After 15 years or so of growth, churn and flux, Twitter is only the most egregious case of a problem also facing Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit: stagnant or declining fortunes. When Reddit triggered an ongoing revolt among its volunteers by cutting off free third-party API access, it was really facing the same wall against which Musk continues to bang his head. In the low-interest-rate 2010s, Wall Street and private equity firms considered users and engagement a speculative proxy for future revenue growth. These days, pretty much the only thing that points to revenue growth is, well, actual revenue growth.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeI don’t see how another platform owned by meta could ever be seen as a positive development.
I don’t see how another platform owned by meta could ever be seen as a positive development.
The only way Threads will “kill” Twitter is if enough people are willing to sign away their privacy and their humanity to the Zuckerverse. Facebook is now trash. Instagram has proven it hates its users. And everything at Meta is tainted by Zuck’s obsession with destroying privacy.
Of course people are willing to do that. Have you seen how many are on TikTok?
Not that I think that will kill Twitter
Of course people are willing to do that. Have you seen how many are on TikTok?
Not that I think that will kill Twitter
The only way Threads will “kill” Twitter is if enough people are willing to sign away their privacy and their humanity to the Zuckerverse. Facebook is now trash. Instagram has proven it hates its users. And everything at Meta is tainted by Zuck’s obsession with destroying privacy.
This is just another hit piece on Elon Musk. Twitter is much better now that he has taken over. It is literally the only major platform where you can hear mostly uncensored news. The Twitter files demonstrated the ugly reality that Big Tech is now just an arm of the security state. That is what the author hates about it.
This is just another hit piece on Elon Musk. Twitter is much better now that he has taken over. It is literally the only major platform where you can hear mostly uncensored news. The Twitter files demonstrated the ugly reality that Big Tech is now just an arm of the security state. That is what the author hates about it.
A poor article in Unherd? It was bound to happen eventually given it actually believes in free speech.
A poor article in Unherd? It was bound to happen eventually given it actually believes in free speech.
Perhaps they will both lose – A win win.
Perhaps they will both lose – A win win.
Whatever you might think of Elon Musk, you almost certainly think less of Mark Zuckerberg.
Threads will be just one more of those “me too” products that never takes off.
Since I took myself off Fakebook and WhatsApp, thus I seldom ever think of Zuckerberg and then as you say – disparagingly.
Unfortunately Elon too can behave erratically and that is troubling as the world is desperate need for a real functioning hero – considering the precarious state it is in these days.
Since I took myself off Fakebook and WhatsApp, thus I seldom ever think of Zuckerberg and then as you say – disparagingly.
Unfortunately Elon too can behave erratically and that is troubling as the world is desperate need for a real functioning hero – considering the precarious state it is in these days.
Whatever you might think of Elon Musk, you almost certainly think less of Mark Zuckerberg.
Threads will be just one more of those “me too” products that never takes off.
How would the decline of twitter finish off Musk, he still has Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink
How would the decline of twitter finish off Musk, he still has Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink
Any sane society would ban Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok immediately. Twitter, Google, and YouTube would be regulated as monopoly utilities, required to exercise zero censorship except for illegal material, and limited to profits of 15% of revenue.
Any sane society would ban Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok immediately. Twitter, Google, and YouTube would be regulated as monopoly utilities, required to exercise zero censorship except for illegal material, and limited to profits of 15% of revenue.
Talk is cheap. Twitter is worthless. Always has been. A socially transmitted disease. A plague.
Talk is cheap. Twitter is worthless. Always has been. A socially transmitted disease. A plague.
Thanks for your report.
Thanks for your report.