How Threads Could Kill Twitter

After months of chaos at Twitter, many people are looking for something different—but most have yet to commit to a single platform, which is good news for Threads. “They’ve definitely got a fighting chance if all of their protections for communities and individuals are firmly in place,” says Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Australia. “If Threads can displace Twitter’s current toxicity, it may well steal Musk’s crown.”

That also matters to brands, and by extension advertisers, who flooded Threads as it opened to users. Netflix and Spotify were there right away, as were news organizations. Instagram has long been brand-friendly, and Twitter is increasingly losing trust. “It’s a play for advertising,” Matthew Bailey, principal analyst of media and entertainment at consultancy firm Omdia, says of Meta’s venture into Threads. “It wants to pick up that exodus of Twitter advertisers. Developing this brand-safe environment is crucial.”

Other competitors haven’t killed Twitter, despite ongoing technical and ethical difficulties at the bird app. Decentralized Mastodon saw a surge of new users, but interest eventually waned, with active monthly users sitting at 1.7 million as of July. Bluesky has gotten attention, but it isn’t fully open to new users. There’s Post.news and Spill, too, though none of these has emerged as a clear victor, and Twitter continues to stumble along eight months after Musk’s takeover.

Instagram, and Threads by extension, has its own challenges. Instagram has struggled with harassment and hate speech, and it is still trying to shake its reputation for negatively affecting teens’ mental health. But its reputation is better than Twitter’s, which has seen hate speech increase since Musk took over. And it’s telling that Meta chose to link Threads to Instagram rather than Facebook, which has an older audience and a worse reputation for toxic political fighting.

But Meta has a mixed history when it comes to cannibalizing its competitors. Instagram Reels leveraged some of TikTok’s popularity, and Instagram Stories, a Snapchat copy, has become a key part of the app—although neither has killed the rival networks, which remain two of Meta’s top competitors for attention among younger generations.

Threads might be the shiny Twitter rival of the week, but Meta has a rotten record with projects outside its core apps. Its all-in bet on the metaverse hasn’t yielded the immersive world Zuckerberg envisioned, even when it added legs. In the past year alone, Meta has killed other offshoots, including Super (a Cameo copy), Facebook live shopping, and Neighborhoods (a Nextdoor clone). A podcast push also packed up shop earlier in 2022. And Meta followed Twitter in announcing a paid subscription tier that would come with verification and better features earlier this year.

And people don’t generally seek out Twitter and Instagram to meet the same needs. Twitter allows some nudity, while Instagram has barred it. Instagram is, at times, about aesthetics and positivity and personal updates—though it’s notorious for veering into toxic positivity and overly edited and carefully selected images. Twitter’s brand lies in snark, memes, and breaking news. It’s doubtful those two energies can merge seamlessly. “My take is it’s less about text versus photos and videos and more about what public conversations you want to have,” Mosseri wrote in a Thread about the platform’s purpose.

Threads might never be Twitter—but it might be a friendlier place for conversations. For now, most of the posts on Threads are about the platform itself. But it will have to hold attention past its launch to avoid being shuffled off into the Meta graveyard of failed imitators.