Meta's new text-based Threads platform has gained over 100 million users just a week after its launch, but is already engaging in aggressive censorship of "wrongthink," leading many to wonder whether the platform will have much long-term success.
Launched on July 5, Threads has quickly gained popularity after promising a more positive and engaging "public square" for communities. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed his astonishment over the new platform's growth in a July 10 post.
"Threads reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend," he wrote. "That's mostly organic demand, and we haven't even fully promoted it yet. [I] can't believe it's only been 5 days!"
According to Zuckerberg, Threads offers a seamless way for users to find and transfer their Instagram followers, eliminating the need to rebuild their networks from scratch. The platform seeks to become a space for "public conversations" involving over a billion people. But the conversations allowed on Threads are only those conversations which are approved by Zuckerberg and his globalist handlers. Users who have an account on Instagram, another Meta platform, can sign up on Threads via their accounts and maintain a portion of their followers.
Zuckerberg is not the only executive within Meta that lauded Threads. Instagram head Adam Mosseri also praised the platform as an alternative for those who never fully embraced Twitter.
CNBC said if Threads manages to retain its user base, it could establish itself as a formidable competitor to Twitter. The latter reported nearly 238 million monetizable daily active users in its last quarterly earnings report as a public company last summer.
Threads' growth appears to be bad news for the social media platform purchased by Elon Musk in October 2022. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince shared a screenshot on July 9 that showed a substantial drop in Twitter's traffic.
Even web analytics firm Similarweb showed the same outcome. It found that Twitter's web traffic dropped by five percent during the first two days of Threads becoming available, compared to the week before. The platform's web traffic was down 11 percent when compared to the same period in 2022.
Twitter threatens LEGAL ACTION against Meta over Threads
Twitter did not give further comment on the matter aside from an automated response, while Meta did not offer comment beyond Zuckerberg's post.
But hours after Threads was launched on July 5, longtime Musk lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter to Zuckerberg. Spiro's letter accused Meta of engaging in "systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property." (Related: Twitter threatens to sue Meta over intellectual property theft allegations following its launch of Threads.)
The lawyer alleged that Zuckerberg's firm hired many Twitter employees who "had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information." These employees, he added, were assigned to develop Threads "in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees' ongoing obligations to Twitter."
"Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure or use of its intellectual property by Meta," Spiro warned.
Meta Communications Director Andy Stone denied the "baseless" accusations Spiro put forward. He clarified: "No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee. That's just not a thing."
Visit BigTech.news for more stories about Twitter and Meta's Threads.
Watch this episode of Tim Poole's "Timcast" that touches on Twitter's threat of legal action against Meta over Threads.
This video is from the SecureLife channel on Brighteon.com.
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