“Being on @Threads this week has felt like sitting on a half-empty train in the early hours as people gradually board with horror stories of how awful the service is on the line at the other end,” actor David Harewood wrote in a post on Meta’s Twitter/X rival, which seems to be resonating, at least in the UK, after last week’s far-right riots, judging by the number of “Hey, how does this work?” questions from newcomers.
Newcomers to the thread might be wondering why it took so long. To say Elon Musk’s tenure as owner of the social network formerly known as Twitter and now renamed X has been outrageous would be a criminal understatement. Recent highlights include the unbanning of numerous far-right and extremist accounts, as well as his own misinformation campaign regarding far-right anti-immigrant riots in the UK.
Before Musk bought the company in 2022, few alternatives to Twitter existed, but several have emerged in the past few years. Today, there are the generally left- and liberal-leaning Blue Sky and Mastodon, the right-leaning Gab, and Donald Trump’s Truth Social Network.
But perhaps the biggest threat to X is Threads, in part because it was launched by Meta, the giant behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. But a simple question remains: is Threads any good?
For Satnam Sanghera, an author and journalist, the reason for the move is simple: “This place is corroding the very fabric of British society so I am trying to avoid it as much as possible and hoping it will be regulated,” he explained in a direct message on X. “Systemic abuse has been an issue for me, and for many people of colour, for years.”
But the force behind the switch is not so much the allure of Threads, a popular new social network, but the power to drive people away from X. “Threads has some great things, especially the fact that it links with Instagram, which is probably the most convenient social media platform,” Sanghera says. “But a lot of my loved ones aren’t on it. I’m hoping that will change, or maybe it’s just that it’s time to quit social media altogether.”
The integration with Instagram allows Insta users to open a Threads account with just a few clicks, which seems to have really accelerated Threads’ growth. Threads hit the milestone of 200 million active users earlier this month, just one year after its initial release. In comparison, Bluesky has just 6 million registered accounts and 1.1 million active users, while Mastodon has 15 million registered users, but no public data on active users.
Social media site Bluesky is one of the current alternatives to X. Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
“Threads has one big advantage,” says Emily Bell, director of the Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University in New York. “It has a built-in user base of celebrities and athletes. If you really want to kick everyone off Twitter, you can have Taylor Swift, Chapel Rowan, [Italian sports journalist] “Fabrizio Romano”
Bell believes that because all of these users are already on Instagram, it may be easier to attract them to Threads than to convince them to start from scratch with an entirely new social network.
But she says this is a shame, and thinks Threads is a terrible product. “To me, Threads is a platform designed to compete with Twitter, and it feels like it was designed by a company that hates everything about Twitter,” she says. “Threads is boring as hell – presentation, participation, everything.”
From my personal experience trying out Threads for this article, it seems like Meta doesn’t see Threads as a huge, exciting new product that they want new users to use. Having around 88,000 followers on X has always made me hesitant to join other social networks, which is why I’ve never had an Instagram account.
To join Threads, I had to join Instagram first, which took about 24-36 hours because of some weird error messages I got while signing up. I finally created a Threads account, but after following 5 accounts, it was limited. A few hours later, it was lifted, I was able to follow 3 more, and then it was limited again. I quickly gave up.
Those who found it easy to join the site say that once they were on it, it was more comfortable than X, but that’s mainly for the simple reason that it still has moderation staff and doesn’t actively try to attract the far right.
“Threads has a different vibe because it’s a largely small, autonomous group,” says misinformation researcher Nina Jankowitz, “and they’re trying it because they want something different than Twitter/X, usually. It’s also actively moderated, and it definitely helps that the site’s leadership isn’t actively pushing conspiracy theories.”
Both potential rivals to X are keen to differentiate themselves from the original. Meta has said it doesn’t want Threads to focus on news and current events like X. Mastodon is perhaps the most consciously “woke” of the alternatives, with very different norms around content warnings and sharing. As such, Bluesky offers the closest experience to the “rebellious” and playful “old Twitter” that many still miss.
Threads seems to be successful because it’s an easy default: If you use Instagram, it’s the easiest way to join.
Even some of the early successes on Threads are a bit sceptical about its actual value: Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, has more than 20,000 followers on Threads (166,300 on X), but she confesses that she never actually posts there.
“I just cross-post it to Instagram,” she says, sounding a little guilty. “So I [following] Nothing happens and there is no involvement whatsoever.”
That’s not to say Chrissy has shunned social media. She still posts on X, and is now in a local WhatsApp group with up to 700 members so her supporters can interact with her directly. Though she says she “doesn’t understand” TikTok (“I don’t feel like dancing in public”), she created an account there because “local Asian moms were telling me that’s where they belonged.”
Chrissie noted that this fragmentation of social media has made her job as a member of Congress more difficult during the recent turmoil: Trying to connect with an audience and provide accurate information is harder on six platforms than it is on one.
Threads’ success may be due to the ease of joining by default: If you use Instagram, it’s the easiest thing to join, and once you’re there, it’s… fine. But if other users seem to be operating on autopilot, they probably are.
“It’s a little bit overloaded here, you’re just in the media and you don’t know what to do,” Creasy says, “and ironically, that’s why I don’t do threads. I know that’s where I get my momentum and that’s where I’m not doing anything.”