Is Threads the Twitter killer?

24:58Is Threads the Twitter killer?

It's not a secret that things at Twitter are chaotic, but the conversation about the microblogging network's future took an interesting turn last week after Meta launched its Twitter clone, Threads.

In the battle for social media dominance, Threads could be the first app to kill Twitter. The reason why this matters is not just because it could result in the collapse of a tech billionaire's passion project, but that Twitter was maybe the closest thing we ever had to a public square on the internet.

The Ringer's Alyssa Bereznak and media studies professor Siva Vaidhyanathan join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss what might happen next.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Alyssa, let's start with the new thing and that's Threads. You joined hours after it launched, I assume. What's it like?

Alyssa: Yeah, it's pretty much just like Twitter in the sense that you post things and you can quote-thread. Right now there are some limitations: you can't search for hashtags and you can't … see a straight feed of the people you follow. But for the most part, it's a copycat of Twitter. And it feels like the first day of school or the first week of school. Everyone is sort of getting their sea legs and kind of unsure about how to post and what to do because it's a different set of people in your feed. It's basically imported from your [Instagram] feed … and that's different than what your Twitter feed might be.

Elamin: I should say, on Twitter a post is called a tweet — we have a name for it. Do we have a name for whatever is going on on Threads? One of my colleagues here, Shuli, was like, "We should call it threatening." Like each post is a threat. 

Siva: Yeah, so let me be the downer for this part of the conversation and maybe all of it. It is kind of like the first day of school. It's like the first day of ninth grade, but all of a sudden, you find you have your first grade teacher.

This is Meta, right? This is a company we're really too deeply familiar with and already has so much influence on our lives, on our culture, on our politics, on our commerce, right? This is the old boss, but the old boss who's used to dealing with far less mature material….

Look, you want to know what the Twitter-killer app is? It's Twitter. It was killing itself. It still is.- Siva Vaidhyanathan

So look, this is run by Adam Mosseri. It's run by Instagram. This is Instagram without the cute golden retriever pictures. This is Instagram without the fun, right? It's boring as hell! I'm sorry. Granted, it's only been a week, but if I want Instagram, I'm on Instagram. If I want, like, thorny, nasty, mix it up stuff, I wish I could still do that on Twitter, at a certain level, [but] now it's just dealing with trolls and Nazis.

The idea that you could recreate Twitter circa 2010 through 2020 — it's just impossible. And let's remember, also, Twitter was a spectacular failure in almost every measurable way from the beginning. It never made money. It never had more that 250 million followers, which sounds like a big number until you compare it to the 3 billion on Facebook, the 2 billion on Instagram, the 2 billion using WhatsApp, the 1.5 billion using WeChat…. Twitter was nothing. Twitter was never in the top 10 social media platforms in the world ever. It's never made a dime. Look, you want to know what the Twitter-killer app is? It's Twitter. It was killing itself. It still is. It will continue.

Elamin: It's a bummer note, but it's true in the sense that the sort of explosive and everybody kind of feeling in the mix culture of Twitter is the thing that has not been replicated…. When you are on Threads, this new app, the posts that you're seeing are from people that Meta says, "You might be interested in this." And Twitter doesn't do that to the same extent. For the most part, it's usually people that you're following…. So in your experience, Alyssa, how is the Threads culture different?

Alyssa: Yeah, the makeup of the people you follow on Instagram is a lot different than on Twitter because anyone can sort of post a photo on Instagram and have it be mildly interesting, but it takes a lot more to be charismatic and compelling in just text.

So, I follow a lot of celebrities and brands on Instagram and they are just kind of like, "Hey, what's up?" They don't have anything to say about news or politics. And in fact, Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, has said that they're not interested in courting politics or news as sort of major sources on this new Threads app, which is concerning. They basically want there to be sports and entertainment. And the fact that [he thinks] that maybe those things don't actually intersect with news or politics is a whole different story.

Siva: I mean, isn't that why we use Instagram? I follow all my sports teams on Instagram. I follow the handful of celebrities I still care about on Instagram. And it's lovely because it's video and it's images and it's sometimes memes and it's cute and fun and lively, and I get to interact with the people I've been building a community with for years. You know, I don't know, like, I go to Threads and it's all positive affirmations. It makes me yearn for the trolls.

So I don't see the value added, except that I see this as a major troll in itself, right? Like, Meta is trolling Elon Musk because it can — because it has the money to spend. It doesn't matter if it ever makes a dime. It's all about squeezing a handful more user engagement minutes out of people, maybe as a landing place when Twitter goes under imminently for a lot of people, and maybe it grows into something minor and ultimately gets federated back within the blue borders of Facebook. I just don't see the point except that they thought that they could alleviate or put Twitter out of our misery sooner.

Alyssa: I also think it's a marketing opportunity for Mark Zuckerberg. The headlines so far have been a huge win for him. This is a rare moment where he looks good.

Elamin: What I'm picking up from both of you here is this notion that actually Twitter matters more than we've given it credit for for some time — that there's something significant to be lost and we're trying to replace it so desperately here. What is that thing? What has Twitter given us? 

Siva: I already outlined how limited Twitter was in terms of its impact on the larger world, but it had an outsized effect on a smaller, largely elite world. People like us, people in the media, people who are directly engaged with politics, people who are activists, but also people who have certain cultural affiliations.

But look, I think I'm still correct about this.The largest Twitter account on Twitter is Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. He is the most popular social media politician in the world, probably the most popular politician in the world. Stuff happens on Twitter that matters in the sense that a proclamation on Twitter still counts as news. Even if only a few hundred people see it at any given time, it's still interpreted as news.

What was the gap it filled in your day? You would go to Facebook to get pictures of your cousin's kid's wedding. You would go to Instagram to follow the San Antonio Spurs —  my basketball team — or all the golden retrievers I follow who are super cute and fun, right? And then you would go to Twitter for some serious stuff, or an argument, or just if you felt like being upset about something and you wanted to vent about something. That's a variety of human emotions and needs. And remember, every single one of these platforms is fundamentally an emotion machine. We talk about Twitter being a public square, being a place we talk about public affairs. But the extent and way we talked about public affairs on Twitter — and I'm using the past tense all of a sudden — it's fundamental emotion was indignation. 

There has to be space and an outlet for indignation. I mean, obviously we all overdid it. Even nice people on Twitter engage in way too much indignation for anyone's good, which is why ultimately, I think it was corrosive to democracy and political culture and civic culture. Not good overall. So, yeah, we can miss it when it goes away, but we should also recognize that we lived pretty well before it ever existed, and we did find ways to engage about public affairs, usually through media outlets like the one in which we are currently engaged. 

Elamin: I do think there's truth to that, to the idea that it sort of mattered a lot to journalists and media people that shared some sort of element of the elite. That's always been the criticism of the platform. But, Alyssa, to me, there is a sense that Twitter did push the conversation. For at least for a period of time, it kind of set the news agenda, if you will. 

Alyssa: Yeah, for sure. I think it's really important to remember, you know, people say that "news is the first draft of history" and I think Twitter was like the scrawling on the page before the first draft.

There was a lot of opportunity for journalists to access a lot of different perspectives — in some cases, that could create a weird bubble where they were only seeing certain perspectives — but every journalist I know who came up in the digital media era really used it as a resource for sources, as a way to vary the perspectives in their coverage. And in a lot of ways, it also helped prioritize certain news stories that other large media outlets who are gatekeepers in the space wouldn't have prioritized. You think about the Black Lives Matter protests. I really think that Twitter helped drive a lot of that activist conversation and force it into the main stage of conversation. 

Siva: Absolutely. And one of the reasons it was able to do that is that Twitter users invented hashtags, and Twitter quickly came up with hashtag search — something Adam Mosseri and Meta have decided to delay. If you're talking about civic engagement, it is the core function that they've left out. 

Elamin: What's the future of all of this? How's the future of this going to unfold? Siva, I'll start with you.

Siva: Oh, gosh. I mean, I'm no expert on the future. I barely have a handle on the past or the present. All I can say is Meta tends to win just about everything it does because it has the cash, right? I mean, we talk about how it's been a bad five years for Meta. It's been a flat five years in North America. It's been a flat five years in Western Europe. But Meta, Facebook, Instagram [and] WhatsApp have been surging in India, in Kenya, in Nigeria, in South Africa, in Brazil, in Mexico. In places in the world that are growing, where the economies are growing, where there are tremendous numbers of young people. Facebook is everything. Let's not forget that the old fashioned Facebook is still incredibly powerful in the world and makes a ton of money.

Alyssa: I would say just look at what happened to Snapchat stories. Instagram completely copied that thing. No one uses Snapchat stories anymore. Like, this is kind of what we're expecting for the future and it's a thing that Meta does frequently. So yeah, Meta is probably going to win this one.

Elamin: Wow. All money bet on Meta. OK. All right. We'll see what happens in the next few months. Alyssa, Siva, I appreciate you guys being here. Thank you so much. 

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jessica Low.