Threads Unravels: So-Called 'Twitter Killer' App Sees Exodus Of Users, Plunge In Engagements

Corporate media and their progressive friends have spent the last nine days championing Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's new social network, "Threads," calling it a "Twitter Killer" and prophesying the demise of Elon Musk's free-speech platform.

Threads, the new social media app from Meta Platforms, which appears to be a copy of Twitter, was released on July 5 and quickly gained more than a hundred million users in the first five days of existence. There has been tremendous hype about Threads from all corners of uber-progressive corporate media, such as The New York Times, which penned a piece titled "Threads, Instagram's 'Twitter Killer,' Has Arrived." Federal-funded NRP News wrote, "Is Threads really a 'Twitter killer'? Here's what we know so far." And here's a CBS News article titled "Meta's "Twitter killer" app Threads is here – and you can get a cheat code to download it."  

So all the hype was primarily driven by corporate media, some of which appear to be a coordinated media blitz, to quickly sway the minds of the masses that Twitter is dead and Threads is the place to be. However, those efforts are failing. 

CNBC reported new data from SensorTower and SimilarWeb shows Threads "has seen some dropoff in growth and engagement." 

Sensor Tower data shows a sizeable pullback in user engagement since Threads' July 5 launch. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the platform experienced a 20% plunge in daily active users from Saturday. User time on the platform crashed 50% from 20 minutes to just 10 minutes for the same period. 

"These early returns signal that despite the hoopla during its launch, it will still be an uphill climb for Threads to carve out space in most users' social network routine," Anthony Bartolacci, managing director at Sensor Tower, told CNBC. 

Similarweb confirms the exodus of users: Threads saw a 25% plunge in daily active users between its July 7 peak and Monday for Threads users on Android phones worldwide. Time spent on the app slid from 20 minutes on July 6 to just 8 minutes on Monday. 

"We did see engagement drop somewhat over the weekend, and on Monday we estimate Threads had 36.6 million active users on Android.

"While there was intense interest in checking out the app initially, not every user has made a habit of visiting Threads as often as they might other social apps," David Carr, senior insights manager at Similarweb, told CNBC. 

We used Bloomberg data to reveal the media blitz by legacy media to attack Elon. News stories with the keywords "Twitter Killer" exploded during the launch of Threads and days after. 

And this.

The appeal of Threads is quickly waning. Why we don't know the exact reasoning -- some users have already reported shadowbanning and algorithmic downgrading of non-mainstream content. It could be speculated that Threads' objective is to provide agencies like the FBI and CIA with a new political messaging platform to tightly control the narrative ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle after their control at Twitter was whittled down after Musk bought Twitter.