Since its debut on July 6, Threads has taken the world by storm, becoming the fastest platform ever to reach 100 million users, a feat that it took just 5 days to achieve. It is Instagram’s answer to Elon Musk-owned X, which has undergone a myriad of changes since the acquisition by him. Users have considered some of the moves as draconian and have looked at alternate platforms to switch to, of which Threads has taken full advantage. However, the latest comments by Instagram head Adam Mosseri might spell bad news for the platform in its attempts to compete against X in the race to become the top microblogging site in the world.
Threads won’t amplify news
In a conversation with The Verge in July, Adam Mosseri said that Threads is“not going to do anything to encourage” hard news or politics on its platform. The Instagram head reiterated his opinion during an Instagram creator a few days ago about the type of content Threads will amplify, as per a TechCrunch report. He said, “We want to empower creators in general. We try not to lean too hard into news. We’re not anti-news.”
In a Threads post yesterday, Mosseri further clarified, “We’re not anti-news. News is clearly already on Threads. People can share news; people can follow accounts that share news. We’re not going to get in the way of any either. But, we’re also not going go to amplify news on the platform. To do so would be too risky given the maturity of the platform, the downsides of over-promising, and the stakes.”
X’s approach
While Threads is quite apprehensive when it comes to news, X is making efforts for people to stay longer on the platform. Consequently, the platform recently removed headlines from link previews on the iPhone app as well as the version of X. Musk said that this move was to “improve the aesthetics” and push content creators to post more “long form” content on the platform.
Apart from news, Musk wants X to be a super app, similar to WeChat in China. Announcing the rebranding of Twitter to X on July 24, CEO Linda Yaccarino said that apart from being a social media platform for users to interact with, X would also offer various services such as audio, video, and messaging. It would also offer banking and payment services.
