The IT Nerd

Elon Musk can claim that he’s not antisemitic, or he’s not racist or whatever. And he can also claim that Twitter isn’t a cesspool of hate., But what’s becoming clear is less and less people believe him. And the latest example of that is the news that The White House has set up accounts for the President and the VP among other people on Twitter competitor Threads:

The White House on Monday joined the social media platform Threads, the Meta rival to Elon Musk’s X social media platform.

The move, which the White House says was in the process for several weeks, comes just days after the White House and others criticized Musk for the amplification and endorsement of an anti-Semitic post.

Major media companies, including Comcast, The Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery, announced that they were pausing ads on X, formerly known as Twitter.

And:

The White House launched its own official account, as well as accounts for the president, First Lady, vice president, and second gentleman. Additionally, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign told CNN that the president, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, would launch personal accounts on Threads as well.

A White House spokeswoman, Robyn Patterson, said the reason for the move is because “we are committed to meeting people where they are.”

Elon has got to be freaking right now. If the leader of the free world has joined Threads, that instantly gives the platform a whole lot of credibility that it didn’t have before this move by The White House. And yes, I know Threads is owned by the same guy that owns Facebook and Instagram which both make you the product. But that’s irrelevant at the moment because a lot of people will join Threads simply because President Joe Biden is there.

I’m calling it now, there’s going to be another wave of people leaving Twitter. If it hasn’t started already. And you have to wonder how badly Elon will react to that.

Reuters is reporting that more than half of initial users have now left Threads which a couple of weeks ago was seen as a “Twitter killer”:

“Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We’re not there yet,” he said.

Zuckerberg said he considered the drop-off “normal” and expected retention to grow as the company adds more features to the app, including a desktop version and search functionality.

Meta is looking at adding more “retention-driving hooks” to entice users to return to the app, like “making sure people who are on the Instagram app can see important Threads,” said Chief Product Officer Chris Cox.

To be honest, I am not shocked by this. Threads is the shiny new object that isn’t exactly feature complete. But the question is if Meta can build on the people who stay. Now I am not on Threads as I refuse to use a Facebook product. But from what I have heard from Threads users, there is a lot of engagement on the platform. And that to me suggests that Meta can still make a go of this and make Elon Musk’s life miserable. Thus I will be sitting back and watching this to see if that becomes reality.

After an initial launch, it seems that Meta’s Twitter killer Threads has run into a couple of hiccups. The first is that engagement on Threads has dropped:

By the numbers: Daily active users were down about 20% on Tuesday and Wednesday this week from Saturday, marketing data firm Sensor Tower says.

• Time spent has fallen from 20 minutes to 10 minutes.
• Separate data from Similarweb revealed similar patterns — a more than 25% drop in daily active users between July 7 and Monday among Android phone users.

What they’re saying: Twitter competitor Threads “will need a more compelling value proposition than simply ‘Twitter, but without Elon Musk,'”Anthony Bartolacci, managing director at marketing data firm Sensor Tower, tells CNBC.

Interesting, but not a shock. I was privately wondering if people would remain engaged on Threads after getting an account. If they did, Elon and company would have a lot to worry about. But that apparently isn’t the case. So that might give Elon and company some hope. Key word: Some.

Also, if you’re going to the EU and wish to post to Threads, I have bad news for you. Threads isn’t going to work in the EU even if you’ve signed up for a Threads account in the US or any other place that Threads is available:

Recently, EU users began to notice they were suddenly unable to post on the new social media platform. Industry analyst Matt Navarra reached out to Meta to figure out what’s going on. In a statement given to Navarra, the tech giant admitted to taking extended “measures to prevent people [in EU] countries [from] accessing Threads,” which apparently includes blocking the use of VPNs that people often use to bypass online access restrictions.

Currently, the platform remains unavailable to most European nations. There are, of course, exceptions for non-members like the United Kingdom. Meta concludes its statement by saying it hopes to one day “bring Threads to more countries in the future” as Europe is an important market for the company.

That isn’t surprising either. Clearly Meta doesn’t want any trouble from the EU until they can figure out a way to launch Threads there that allows them not to run afoul of any EU laws, while at the same time being able to do Meta things. By that I mean gather up all the data on you that it can so that it make money off it it. It will be interesting to see if Meta course corrects on that front as that’s 100 million users that Meta would like to get their hands on.

Earlier today, news filtered out that Elon Musk had threatened to sue Meta over Threads. Specifically because he claimed that Meta stole Twitter employees that he fired and used them to spin up Threads. It is likely that this claim by Elon is dubious at best, and the truth likely is that he’s more afraid of the fact that Meta has managed to get 30 million signups on Thread in 24 hours. Here’s a screen shot of Mark Zuckerberg announcing this on Threads:

Elon Musk just must be losing his mind. He’s taken Twitter and his poor decisions have turned it into the most epic train wreck next to a dumpster fire that history has ever seen. Now he has Meta coming for his breakfast, lunch and dinner. And the thing is that he clearly has no answer to that. I have speculated that Threads as much as I don’t like it, may be the thing that ultimately kills Twitter. Based on how fast the platform is getting people to sign up, that may be about to come true. And Elon is going to be at least $44 billion poorer as a result. Not that I fee sorry for him or anything.