Media outlets are giving positive coverage to tech giant Meta’s new text-based app Threads, which has been described as a “copycat” to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, according to Axios.
Media outlets and journalists have characterized Musk’s Twitter as harmful, poorly managed and plagued with white supremacy, according to reports. CNN Business has labeled Threads as a possible “Twitter killer” and Axios suggested that Musk’s tumultuous approach to running Twitter has helped Meta, which reportedly hurried to release Threads in response to Twitter’s recent difficulties.
“I think people have been looking for an alternative that is kind of Twitter-like, but without some of the toxic atmosphere that you have on Twitter now, without the loss of some of the features that Twitter takes away seemingly randomly,” Gizmodo Editor in Chief Dan Ackerman told ABC News. (RELATED: Twitter Threatens Legal Action Against Meta’s New App, Alleges Intellectual Property Violation)
I have a feeling that the fight between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk will definitely happen#MuskVsZuck #ElonMusk #MarkZuckerberg #threadapp #Threadsapp #Threads pic.twitter.com/t4A14UDc3h
— $MuskVsZuck (@muskvszuck_coin) July 7, 2023
Musk announced on Saturday that there will temporarily be limits on the number of posts users can view per day on Twitter, and originally said that verified accounts can view 6,000 posts each day, unverified accounts 600 posts per day and new unverified accounts 300 posts per day. He later tweeted it would soon increase to 10,000, 1,000 and 500, respectively.
“Folks have been really upset by a lot of the changes that Elon Musk has made to Twitter since he bought it last year. And they basically wanted another Twitter, but not owned by Elon Musk,” New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac stated on PBS NewsHour. “Mark [Zuckerberg] senses weakness. And there is weakness.”
The Threads app will be the most formidable Twitter rival since Musk purchased the platform in October, according to Axios.
The NYT published an article on Thursday with the headline “Threads Becomes Most Rapidly Downloaded App, Raising Twitter’s Ire,” highlighting the new app’s success while criticizing Musk’s Twitter. It emphasized the speed of Threads’ growth, stating that it was “inundated with users,” while criticizing Musk’s Twitter for “outages and bugs.”
The article also asserted that Twitter users were dissatisfied with the platform since Musk’s takeover, including his less strict content moderation.
Vox released an article on Wednesday, titled “What you need to know about Threads, Instagram’s new Twitter killer app,” which discusses how “desperate” users are for an app to take Twitter’s place and how Twitter has “been going through a particularly rough phase” since Musk’s takeover. The article states that Threads is comparable to Twitter in terms of its interface and functionality.
“We are definitely focusing on kindness and making this a friendly place,” Zuckerberg posted on Threads Wednesday. He also replied to billionaire Mark Cuban that “[t]he goal is to keep it friendly as it expands.”
“I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success. That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently,” he wrote.
Zuckerberg announced on Threads that the app already had 30 million sign-ups as of Thursday morning.
Shortly following Meta’s introduction of Threads Wednesday, Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro threatened in a letter to sue the company over “intellectual property rights.”
Twitter responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment with a poop emoji, its automatic response to all press emails.
Meta did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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