2023-07-11 06:01:28
30 million in 15 hours, 70 million in four, 100 million in five days: Threads has reached an overwhelming number of users in what is literally record time: 100 million users in five days. It took Instagram two and a half years to reach this figure, which corresponds, according to estimates, to half the users of Twitter.
The application, which is not yet available in Europe due to legislation, has also caused a sensation in Latin America, one of the regions in the world with the most users of social networks.
“I see a massive migration,” Alberto Escorcia describes what he has experienced in the days since the launch of Threads. The Mexican journalist, famous for his analysis of trends and social phenomena on Twitter, has been closely following the new Meta application.
“There are many people active in Threads. I do see a change in that direction. And many users are deciding whether to stay on Twitter just for the sake of formality.” Escorcia monitors different accounts of content creators with more than a million followers. That these large accounts have also changed platforms shows for him the dimension of the movement.
Resounding success?
Matías Bianchi, director of the “Asuntos del Sur” think tank, an organization that focuses on participation and inclusion in Latin American democracies and the influence of technology and social media, is shown a little more skeptical. “The figures have to be taken with a grain of salt, the supposed success that it has had in its first week is a misleading success,” says the expert. Bianchi emphasizes that this “boom” may also be due to the ease with which, With just a couple of clicks, users can subscribe to the application from their Instagram account and he warns that it remains to be seen if an active community can really be created.
Although it is true, admits Bianchi, that many people are already exploring it and that there is likely to be rapid growth: “In Latin America there are around 200 million Instagram users, so I imagine that this is going to take very quickly. a growth in Threads in Latin America.” However, the issue is surrounded by speculation, since there is still no data available on how many Latin Americans have already subscribed to Threads.
Threads in politics, politicians in Threads
As Escorcia explains, many users were anxiously waiting for an alternative to leaving Twitter, which they saw as a toxic network, where threats and hatred were omnipresent. “Many want to seize this moment, before Threads becomes politicized as well.” According to those who have used it, the “new Twitter” seems to have a friendlier tone and be focused on entertainment. That is precisely what its creators intended: Adam Mosseri, director of Instagram, clarified that the topics to prioritize in Threads are very different from those of the platform and that he is “not going to do anything to promote” politics and “news”. hard” with its algorithm.
However, there are already several Latin American politicians who have succumbed to the fever for the new application: at the close of this note, Lula was, with almost 250,000 followers, the Latin American president with the most followers, followed by Gustavo Petro, with 170,000. , and López Obrador with just over 100,000.
While Latin American politicians try to campaign on the new social network, the experts interviewed for this note do not believe that in Latin America Threads can unseat Twitter so quickly in the political aspect, and that if it did, the result might not be the best.
According to Alberto Escorcia, the risk of creating “echo chambers without diversity” on Threads is even greater than on Twitter. Being a platform video focused and in entertainment, Matías Bianchi estimates that it is likely to become a platform with less content and more , “a place to campaign politically with commercials.”
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