When middle-aged men share memes, it often goes horribly wrong. Twitter owner Elon Musk delivers moments of foreign shame almost every day on his own platform. The fact that there is another way is proven by the guy Musk himself says he would prefer to punch. The first tweetwhich Mark Zuckerberg has been dumping for 11 years, is surprisingly funny and aptly describes the frontal attack on Twitter that his corporation Meta just blew.
Zuckerberg’s tweet is just a screenshot from an old TV episode. Two people in Spiderman costumes point fingers at each other. One is the real Spiderman, the other is a villain. The picture has been taken over the past few years Spread thousands of times as a meme, now Zuckerberg is using it to comment on the fuss surrounding Meta’s new app, Threads – which looks like Twitter, works like Twitter, and even stole Twitter’s name. It’s called threads – that’s what several tweets lined up in a row are called in the original.
After months of rumours, Threads was released on Thursday. Meta has closely linked the app to its most successful platform, Instagram. You can sign in with Instagram account, transfer your username and profile picture, share posts directly to Feed or Stories, and automatically follow everyone you’re friends with on Instagram.
At the start, the app is not yet available in Germany
At first glance, the differences to Twitter are marginal: tweets are called threads, retweets are called reposts, the maximum length is 500 instead of 280 characters. More important than these superficial details is the architecture of the platform. Unlike Twitter, Threads is based on the decentralized Activity Pub protocol and will be connected to the so-called Fediverse in the coming months. Then you could interact with Mastodon users, for example. Its founder Eugen Rochko describes the decentralized approach of Threads as “clear victory for our cause“.
The app is available in more than 100 countries from the start, Germany is not one of them. In the EU, the Digital Services Act of 2024 restricts data sharing between apps, that might as well Instagram and threads affect. But there is a back door. On Android you can the apk file of the app Download and install with active VPN. Anyone who owns an iOS device must change the location of the Apple ID or use a different account.
It is unclear whether and when Threads will officially come to Germany. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri told the newsletter platformers, the delay is frustrating. “We should have either waited for the EU or postponed the launch by many, many, many months.” So it will probably be a while before you can simply download the app from the Google and Apple app stores.
That shouldn’t stand in the way of Threads’ international success. After the release, the hyped-up Zuckerberg reported hourly how many times the app had already been downloaded. After seven hours it should have been ten million downloads. That seems to make rival Musk nervous. He prefers being stalked by strangers on Twitter than indulging in the fake happiness of superficial Instagram, he let the world know on Twitter. He deleted his Instagram account five years ago.
Zuckerberg eagerly taunts Musk
Stupid for Musk that he is rather alone with it. More than two billion people are registered on Instagram, and more than a billion regularly open the app. If only a fraction of users get involved in threads, the service suddenly becomes a threat to Twitter. In any case, Zuckerberg is already teasing eagerly. There should be an app for public debates that more than a billion people use, he wrote. Twitter had its chance and failed.
Threads could be dangerous for Twitter for three reasons. First, Meta leverages Instagram’s network effect. A social network without people is as fun as a swimming pool without water. This is where most of the supposed competitors of the established platforms fail. A few people sign up and, after a brief initial euphoria, realize how boring it is when their friends aren’t there. This sets Threads apart from a number of platforms that have tried to position themselves as a new home for frustrated Twitter users in recent months.
Secondly, Threads is one of the most powerful tech companies. Meta makes tens of billions of dollars a year and can throw money at threads. From day one, the app feels more mature than most other Twitter alternatives. In addition, Meta has been ensnaring celebrities for weeks to make normal people curious. Well-known names such as star chef Gordon Ramsey, musician Ellie Goulding and actor Jack Black are already bustling about there.
The third reason is the most mundane and important: Threads is not Twitter. Since Musk took over the company last fall, he’s crashed the platform. Most of the employees are gone, as are most of the advertisers. What remains are right-wing trolls, technical problems, unpaid bills and a moderately successful subscription model. Last weekend, Twitter capped the number of tweets read per day – rolling out the red carpet for threads.
With his antics, Musk has done the unthinkable. Suddenly, a Meta platform appeared as a more sympathetic alternative – the company that had to pay billions in fines for data protection violations, watched hate speech and conspiracy tales spread for years and was until recently considered digital evil incarnate.
In the future, Meta could operate the largest social network (Facebook), the most relevant social network (Instagram), the largest messenger (Whatsapp) and, with threads, the most important discussion platform. But that’s not settled yet. In the past few years, Meta has copied everything that hadn’t filed a patent for three. In retrospect, one remembers the successful copies of the Snapchat (Stories) and Tiktok (Reels) formats. But with apps like Slingshot, Facebook Paper, Notifiy, Facebook Dating and IGTV, there are plenty of examples of failed clones. Meta likes to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks – Threads could also end up as a noodle on the floor.