The release of Threads is one of the hot topics of the moment. Available from the middle of this week across much of the world (although it’s currently only possible to view its content in the European Union, not register or, of course, publish), the first numbers reaching us are talking about a stellar launch, within the first 24 hours of its existence, millions of users have created their profiles. And of course a very present element in the conversation is Twitter.

The inspiration of Twitter threads is so obvious it’s undeniable. Of course, this is not the first case, because over time, we’ve seen many other services that offer clearly similar interfaces and features. From the already experienced Mastodon to BlueSky, created by Jack Dorsey, who, as you know, was one of the founders of Twitter, the Twitter model has been reproduced again and again for very simple reasons: part of a very successful approach and design, and it is also already familiar to its users, so jumping to other services from Twitter is extremely easy.

Twitter is not at its best. The erratic and incomprehensible management that the social network has been subjected to since Elon Musk took over has caused a decline in user interest and advertiser confidence, and measures such as limiting the maximum number of daily messages a user can see are not helping. In this respect. And that’s why Meta’s timing for the release of Threads seems so appropriate.

But let’s get to the question this article raises, are Threads really a threat to Twitter? There are reasons to think so, and others to think no.These matters are never that simple. We can be clear that today Threads is closer to threatening Twitter than any other social network has ever been, and there are several reasons for this.

When we talk about social networks, we always mention Twitter among the main ones, because it has gained a lot of recognition over the years. But when we get down to the numbers, where do you think it ranks in the global ranking of social networks (in the broadest sense of the term yes) by volume of active users? Do you think he is in the top three? Maybe five? In any case, it has to be in the top ten, right? Well, as we can see in this article by Buffer, which uses such reliable sources as Statista, SEMRush and CNBC, Twitter, with its 238 million monthly active users, occupies the fourteenth position. Yes, we have thirteen services.

It is even more interesting to compare this data with that of Instagram, which, as you know, is the social network with which Threads is affiliated, which therefore has all the potential to convert its users to the new network. And how is Instagram doing in the said ranking? With its 2,000 million monthly active users, it ranks fourth in the table. Ten positions higher and almost ten times the volume of users. And this will be even more interesting if we consider that two of the three positions above Instagram are occupied by other Meta services, Facebook in first place with 2,960 million monthly active users and WhatsApp in third with a practically identical number. to Instagram. Only Google can compete at the top of the table with YouTube’s 2.2 billion monthly active users.

Twitter is great, but history has already shown us that nothing is too big to fail (known as “too big to fail“), and Twitter faces a social network with the potential to multiply its user volume by 10. This explains to us that, unlike its reaction to other “clones” that appeared in the past, which would be comparable to the reaction of a cow wagging its tail, to scare away the flies, he got serious on this occasion and threatens to sue Meta. , which he even accuses of getting confidential information from Twitter to start Threads.

Twitter is facing its most powerful rival, and it’s doing so at one of its worst moments, but beware, that doesn’t mean the war is won or lost depending on which side you read. There are several factors working in Twitter’s favor, starting with its enormous degree of consolidation among users, who in many cases have years of publications, interactions and contacts that they don’t want to lose. If it were possible to take all these elements and automatically transfer them to the new service, the situation would be very different, but since it is not, Twitter is playing a trick that its users have already experienced.

Another important aspect is that Twitter is much more lax than Instagram (and therefore threads) in terms of what can and cannot be posted. Any user who wants to publish content labeled NSFW (Non Safe/Suitable For Work, which is a delicate way of saying it’s something you don’t want the rest of the world to see) will remain tied to Twitter, Well , in the threads you will surely find your content (or the type of content you like) being removed and even the accounts that post it being penalized.

So is Threads a threat to Twitter? In short, yes, it is. Now, both social networks have their strengths, so the difference will be how they use them during the competition that has already started. And this tells us that if everything works as it should, we will experience a very interesting period where both services will fight to become the reference for microblogging social networks.