Twitter, provides its vast user base with a platform to disseminate ideas, sentiments, and multimedia content to a widespread audience. A plethora of features, inclusive of the capability to formulate and circulate threads, endow Twitter with its distinct appeal.
However, the recent debut of Meta’s new social networking site, Threads, seems to be posing a significant challenge to Twitter’s hegemony. In a span of merely five days subsequent to its inauguration, Threads has amassed a staggering 100 million users, thereby endorsing its potential threat to Twitter.
In a bid to counteract this emerging dilemma, Twitter has initiated a potential legal discourse against Meta, the mother concern of Threads.
Manifesting its disapproval of the nascent application, Twitter has implemented a blanket ban on all Thread links on its platform. In essence, any tweet featuring a Threads link is rendered invisible in Twitter’s search results. Consequently, a search for ‘url:threads.net’ proves to be futile for users.
This abrupt development has left Twitter-dependent users in a state of befuddlement and ire. Whilst the underlying rationale behind Twitter’s action remains veiled, conjectures suggest that apprehensions over a probable plunge in traffic post Threads’ debut could be a factor.
This isn’t a maiden instance of Twitter, presently helmed by Elon Musk, obstructing links pertaining to its rivals. Earlier this year, the platform interdicted links to a rival entity named Substack, thereby disabling users to like, retweet or respond to tweets encompassing Substack links.
Musk justified the restriction on Substack’s links by alleging that Substack had illicitly procured a sizable portion of Twitter’s database to contrive a competitor for Twitter.
Regardless of the recent impediments in locating Threads links or the advent of Threads itself, Twitter continues to command popularity amongst a diverse user demographic. Given the ongoing exchange of allegations and rebuttals between both parties, it seems plausible that Twitter and Meta might end up entangled in a legal dispute over Threads’ launch.
