Why We Ask: Our mission and operations are funded 100% by conservatives like you. Please help us continue to extend Liberty to the next generation and support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today.

July 17, 2023

Threads Won’t Take Twitter’s Crown

A new competitor for the social media giant launched to a lot of hoopla, but Elon Musk’s company is likely safe.

Meta has launched an offshoot of Instagram called Threads, and it’s meant to be a direct Twitter competitor. Ten million users immediately signed up to use the platform upon its release, and soon that number swelled to nearly 100 million. Influencers and news media alike have joined in on the marketing campaign to push Threads into the hands of Instagram’s existing audience of 2.35 billion people. While these early numbers are impressive, they do not tell the full and complete story of Threads’ success or lack thereof. Twitter should not feel any threat from Mark Zuckerberg’s latest creation.

Threads is in the perfect position to gain an immediate user base due to having a captive audience. The brand-new social media platform is really just an extension of Instagram. If someone wishes to delete their Threads account, they may only do so by also deleting their Instagram. Instagram also promotes Threads by allowing users to post a direct link to their Threads account in their Instagram bio. This link is separate from the external link that Instagram allows its users to post.

When comparing Twitter to Threads in Google Trends, an interesting phenomenon becomes apparent. Twitter had a consistently higher (and steady) rank in Google Trends except for a very brief period of time. This time frame appears to be about two to three days, at best. This is roughly when Threads was released. News of the Twitter competitor hit the Internet and curious people decided to check it out. After that very short time, however, Google Trends showed that interest in Threads plummeted nearly back to what it was before launch. Twitter remained largely unchanged. The data suggest that people checked out the app due to sheer curiosity and almost immediately checked back out.

Threads has a beautiful interface and it works flawlessly. This is due to backing from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meta has endless resources and some of the most brilliant minds on the planet. There was no question that Threads would be a well-oiled machine straight out of the box.

However, there is nothing unique that draws people to the platform. Threads is essentially a barebones version of Twitter. If a Twitter user enjoys their current experience, then there is no need to invest any time on Threads. If an Instagram user does not like the Twitter experience, then they will not like Threads. If an Instagram user becomes introduced to the Twitter experience through Threads, then Threads acts as a gateway to Twitter. The logic is that there is no reason to opt for a knock-off when the real thing is better and just as accessible.

The only reason Threads has so many “users” is because Meta is a walled garden with a captive audience. It’s easy for a daily Instagram user to simply download Threads and have that attached to their existing Instagram profile. And the word “users” is being used here out of convenience. There are not many active users on Threads in comparison to the number of accounts that the platform officially has. Daily active users of Threads were down nearly 20% from Saturday, and the on-platform time spent per user was down 50%. These numbers represent an obviously steep decline in interest and therefore a steep decline in active users.

Barebones (but flawless) tech and zero incentive to adopt are just two issues that Threads faces. Some new adopters of the platform are already complaining about heavy censorship. This was already an issue on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram is so heavily censored that warnings pop up on screen before people post the most benign, but possibly offensive, things. There are also warnings presented to people when they attempt to follow “problematic” (read: “conservative”) accounts. Twitter, on the other hand, does not have the same issue of censorship as most Big Tech platforms ever since Elon Musk took over the company.

Leftist-oriented tech blogs and pundits alike are probably rooting for Threads to occupy the space that Twitter currently does because Threads is sanitized and leftist-friendly. They accuse Twitter of being the “Wild West” of social media.

In reality, Twitter does have censorship, just on things that should be censored — things like child trafficking and other illegal activities. Instagram, on the other hand, has a serious issue with illegal activity on its platform.

One could make the argument that political correctness and good feelings are more important to Meta than actual illegality.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.