{"id":2020896,"date":"2023-09-03T15:38:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T19:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/zuckerbergs-twitter-killer-app-struggles-for-traction\/"},"modified":"2023-09-03T15:41:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T19:41:25","slug":"zuckerbergs-twitter-killer-app-struggles-for-traction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/zuckerbergs-twitter-killer-app-struggles-for-traction\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuckerberg&#8217;s app fails to gain popularity."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fzuckerbergs-twitter-killer-app-struggles-for-traction%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2020896&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div data-post-content=\"true\" class=\"post_content\" id=\"post_content\">\n<h2>Is Meta&#8217;s Threads Losing Its Momentum?<\/h2>\n<p>Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s microblogging platform Threads, launched \u200cto great acclaim as Instagram&#8217;s \u2062&#8221;Twitter Killer&#8221; in July, appears to be showing signs of struggle.<\/p>\n<p>The initial signs for Threads were extremely encouraging. The platform, nearly a carbon copy \u200bof Twitter, \u2064pulled\u2064 in a staggering 100\u200c million sign-ups in\u2064 less than five \u200bdays.<\/p>\n<p>Forbes senior contributor John Koetsier outlined how Twitter had\u2063 &#8220;imploded&#8221; under the leadership of Elon Musk and cited\u200c the \u200b&#8221;instant credibility&#8221; and &#8220;simplicity&#8221; of Threads as an alternative.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Related Stories<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/tech\/mark-zuckerberg-says-web-version-of-threads-will-be-available-in-next-few-days-5478354\">Mark Zuckerberg Says Web Version of Threads Will Be Available in Next Few Days<\/a><br \/>\n        <span class=\"text-comp-caption\">8\/22\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/article\/time-to-move-on-zuckerberg-says-musk-isnt-serious-about-cage-fight-5462983\">&#8216;Time to Move On&#8217;: Zuckerberg \u200cSays Musk &#8216;Isn&#8217;t Serious&#8217; About Cage Fight<\/a><br \/>\n        <span class=\"text-comp-caption\">8\/14\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Yet nearly two months on from its seemingly \u200bsuccessful \u2063launch, Zuckerberg&#8217;s vision of stealing Twitter&#8217;s thunder\u2062 may be little more than a pipe dream.<\/p>\n<p>Even \u2063NBC \u2062admitted on Aug. 24 that the platform is &#8220;struggling for traction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;An analysis \u200dof Android users by Similarweb, a digital data \u2063and analytics company, estimated that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/twitter-to-introduce-subscription-option\/\" title=\"Twitter To Introduce Subscription Option\">daily active users<\/a> on Threads&#8217; Android app peaked at 49.3 million in early July and\u200c fell to 10.3 million after a \u2063month\u2014a drop of nearly 80%,&#8221; the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/joe-biden-seems-to-make-false-statements-about-number-severity-of-white-house-dog-bites\/\" title=\"Joe Biden Seems To Make False Statements About Number, Severity Of White House Dog Bites\">media outlet reported<\/a> in mid-August.<\/p>\n<p>A week after its July 5 launch, daily active Threads users \u2063peaked \u2064at around 26.7 million, then gradually declined to around 13.5 million by month&#8217;s end, it said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some celebrities who joined the platform before it was available to the public, \u2064such as Jennifer \u200bLopez and \u200cTom Brady, haven&#8217;t posted at all since launch \u2062week. MrBeast, \u200bthe YouTube star who was the \u2064first user to reach 1 million \u2062followers on Threads, stopped posting about \u200da month ago.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One of the most common theories among conservatives for the platform&#8217;s underwhelming \u200cstart is that while Twitter has finally\u200d embraced free\u2062 speech, Threads is a platform governed by strict content \u2062moderation and \u2063politically driven censorship.<\/p>\n<p>Allum Bokhari, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/diet-google-duckduckgo-will-down-rank-what-it-decides-is-disinformation\/\" title=\"Diet Google: DuckDuckGo Will 'Down-Rank' What It Decides Is 'Disinformation'\">senior technology reporter<\/a> at Breitbart News and author of &#8220;Deleted: Big Tech&#8217;s Battle\u200d to\u2064 Erase a Movement and Subvert Democracy,&#8221; told The \u2064Epoch Times that the weakness of Threads lies in its failure \u2063to attract subversive content.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Threads was touted as the polite, politically correct alternative to Elon \u200dMusk&#8217;s X. But \u200cwhen the\u2062 selling point of \u200dyour platform is inoffensiveness, you can&#8217;t be \u200dsurprised when users simply get\u200b bored,&#8221; Mr. \u200dBokhari explained.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left:0;margin-right:0;max-width:1200px\">\n<figure style=\"width:5579px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>This photo illustration shows the X logo \u200d(formerly Twitter) on a smartphone screen \u2064in Los Angeles, California, on July 31, 2023. (Chris Delmas\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>Free \u200cSpeech Is Not the Only Concern<\/h2>\n<p>Yet, issues\u2063 of free speech are far \u200cfrom the only concern.<\/p>\n<p>Jake Denton, a research associate at the \u2063Tech Policy Center for The Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that while X is moving forward with offering new features, Threads still provides \u2063a disappointing user experience.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While Zuckerberg and Meta were\u200d quick to boast about the early \u2064sign-up numbers for Threads, \u200dthat momentum has rapidly dissipated, and the platform seems to be in free fall,&#8221; he said. &#8220;What strikes me most \u200dis the stark contrast between\u2063 the early promises of an exciting new platform and the underwhelming reality that one finds upon logging in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Users eager for a fresh experience encountered &#8220;a feed saturated with \u2063interactions between mega-corporations\u2062 and consumer brands,&#8221;\u200b Mr.\u2062 Denton said, comparing \u200cit\u200d to &#8220;stumbling into a\u2062 virtual networking event for their social media managers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Meta will truly need\u2062 a\u2062 miracle to \u2063save this platform from irrelevancy. If Zuckerberg can&#8217;t find\u200d a way to bring\u200d interesting content\u200d to the platform\u2014content that people actually want to consume\u2014Threads will be dead on arrival,&#8221; he \u200bpredicted.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone\u2064 is\u200c as pessimistic \u200babout the company&#8217;s \u2064future.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Benz, executive \u2063director of the Foundation for Freedom\u2062 Online, \u2062warned that Threads\u2063 could be waiting for X to experience a crisis that it \u200bcan\u2064 take advantage of.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Threads doesn&#8217;t need to be \u2062as good as Twitter to dethrone it\u2014all it needs to \u2064be is a close-enough \u2063substitute \u2026 [so] that when Twitter \u2063is destabilized and put into crisis, Threads can be\u2062 there to catch the\u200d fall,&#8221; he told The Epoch Times. \u200d&#8221;That crisis \u2062can \u200dcome from several directions: financial, if advertiser boycotts ramp back up; legal, via \u200cbankrupting lawfare; and regulatory,\u200d via new regulations such as the EU&#8217;s new disinformation laws.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are 2.3 billion Instagram users, versus only 450 million Twitter users. That&#8217;s a 5x size advantage Threads has to tap into in terms of the Facebook-Instagram-WhatsApp economy into \u200cwhich Threads is being installed. You can&#8217;t underestimate that or rule it out. Especially\u200b with government and institutional support,&#8221; Mr.\u200b Benz said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that, given Mr. Zuckerberg&#8217;s willingness to\u200d comply\u2063 with the demands of the Biden administration, Threads may\u200b also benefit from being the app of choice for the U.S. national security state.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Zuckerberg has \u200bwon back \u2064much of that support after doing the Biden admin&#8217;s bidding on \u200call things\u200d content moderation ahead of the 2020 election and throughout this term,&#8221; Mr. Benz said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because Zuckerberg has proven to be \u2064such a reliable ally to the Pentagon and\u200c State Department, I would not be surprised if Threads begins \u200dto\u200d be \u200dpushed by \u200bthe U.S. government for dissident groups funded by the U.S. national security state to use while organizing revolutions or resistance movements abroad,&#8221; \u2064he said, likening\u2062 it to the State Department\u200b promoting Telegram in 2020 for \u200cthe attempted \u200dcolor revolution in Belarus.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to predict at the moment,&#8221; Mr.\u200d Benz\u2064 said. &#8220;\u2026 as the 2024 \u200celection \u200bapproaches, or another\u2064 pandemic scare, or\u2064 some other crisis or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/zuckerbergs-twitter-killer-app-struggles-for-traction\/\" title=\"Zuckerberg's app fails to gain popularity.\">high-stakes geopolitical event appears<\/a>, the true nature of the \u2064threat posed by Threads will make itself \u2063more clear.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>However, others believe that Threads&#8217; commitment to censoring the political fringes\u200c will prove fatal to its long-term survival.<\/p>\n<p>Among them is former Harvard\u200b professor\u2062 Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the\u200c American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, who argued that Zuckerberg&#8217;s best hope is that \u200bElon \u200cMusk sabotages\u2064 his own company.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see a way for Threads to overtake Twitter\/X in the\u200b microblogging domain,&#8221; said Mr. Epstein. &#8220;By minimizing moderation\u2014which Facebook can&#8217;t do on Threads\u2014Twitter is attracting more extreme content than\u200c it ever has before, and extreme content draws traffic. \u200cI don&#8217;t see a way for Facebook\u200d to compete\u2063 with that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, it is always possible\u200d that Musk or his appointees will mismanage &#8216;X&#8217; \u2063so badly that\u200c the company just implodes,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Perhaps Zuckerberg is counting \u2062on that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet \u200cgiven Mr. Musk&#8217;s track \u200crecord of building successful companies, most \u200cnotably Tesla\u2064 and\u200c SpaceX,\u2063 some\u200c might argue that this possibility remains remote.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, remains publicly optimistic, insisting that he will\u2064 spend the rest of \u2063the\u2064 year\u2062 developing its product and fighting\u200b to retain its\u2062 users.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very optimistic\u2064 about how the Threads community will continue to grow and evolve,&#8221; he\u2062 said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s microblogging platform Threads, hailed as Instagram&#8217;s &#8220;Twitter Killer,&#8221; seems to be facing difficulties. Despite initially promising results, with 100 million sign-ups in under five days, the platform is now showing signs of struggle. Forbes senior contributor John Koetsier has detailed the challenges faced by Threads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2379,"featured_media":2020897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2020896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2379"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2020896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2020896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2020897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2020896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2020896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2020896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}