Meta's pull with Threads may be Twitter's unraveling

Less than 24 hours after Mark Zuckerberg launched Threads, Twitter’s once-tight grasp on real-time political discourse appears to be loosening ever so slightly.

Political figures of all stripes flocked to the new, Meta-launched app on its first full day online, including half of the 16 candidates running for president, a pair of the White House’s most social-media savvy aides and many prominent members of Congress.

Republican presidential hopefuls Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and Tim Scott all joined the platform, though the leading White House contenders — Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis — have so far stayed away.

Among those elected officials who dabbled with Threads were Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The Michigan Democrat was one of the first officials to use the platform, posting a short video of her walking through an office door, with the caption “Let’s do this.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) offered similar jokes in their first posts, with Rubio writing: “Check… check ….1,2,1,2 …is this thing on?” Democratic Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, an avid tweeter, documented her commute on public transit Thursday morning.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates and domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden both joined Threads on Thursday. The latter’s nomination to become director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2021 was pulled after some senators said they would oppose her due to disparaging tweets she had posted about Republicans and progressive Democrats.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) joined the new app — and said he hoped Threads would be the last new social media site he had to sign up for: “PLEASE don’t make me join any more new platforms…. I’ll do anything.”

It’s unclear how much of a blow the new app will deliver to Twitter, a key hub for political dialogue for more than a decade. Many political figures who have joined Threads are still active on the Elon Musk-owned Twitter as well.

But Twitter has faced mounting criticism in political and media circles, including over a recent move by Musk to limit the number of tweets consumers can see in an effort to boost paid subscriptions. Its leadership appeared to recognize the threat posed by Threads. On Thursday, Twitter’s ownership company, X. Corp, threatened to sue Meta, accusing Zuckerberg’s company of “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property” according to a letter obtained by Semafor.

“Now that Elon Musk has basically taken Twitter out of the public eye by restricting tweets to be viewable only once you’re registered and logged in, it totally changes the game for Twitter,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a Syracuse University professor who studies social media and politics. Twitter’s previous policies “was one of the reasons why it became such an important platform for politicians and politics,” she said.

But Threads may also have limitations for politicos. Its timeline is algorithmic, meaning posts are not displayed in reverse chronological order — as is available on Twitter. The Threads timeline also doesn’t allow users to restrict the posts they see to only those accounts they follow, a feature that Meta officials say was designed to promote and prioritize audience scale.

The platform is also currently unavailable in the European Union, home to stricter data privacy regulations than the United States, and it is currently only on mobile.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) appeared to embrace the new platform at its launch, writing on Threads Wednesday night: “May this platform have good vibes, strong community, excellent humor, and less harassment.” But later that evening, she took back to Twitter to write that her Threads app was “bricked.”

Most major American media outlets and many journalists have joined the platform. Reporters registered complaints about the algorithmic feed and the absence of any list-creation options to sort out specific topics of news feeds. Some outlets registered on the platform but didn’t use it. Accounts for the New York Times, Fox News, and MSNBC remained inactive by midday Thursday.

“It’s an unknown question, to what extent will politicians shift over to Threads? To what extent will journalists and other newsmakers and news-watchers follow, or jump over to Threads?” Stromer-Galley said. “And so we’ll see, I think in the next couple of weeks, how quickly it takes off. But if it does take off, then I think it has the potential to really take the place of what Twitter was.”