The not-so-new Twitter CEO, Linda Yaccarino, was seen reassuring and smashing down the reports of a downfall in Twitter’s traffic that resulted from the launch of Meta’s Threads. It appears that Twitter has suffered as Threads passed the 100 million sign-up threshold, and the former is concerned by the potential threat posed by the latter. As a result, since Monday, users have reported that the links to Threads website in Twitter searches seem to be selectively blocked. This makes it difficult to surface the conversations that are taking place on the new app and even find the user’s profile.
Also Read: Twitter’s traffic takes a hit as Meta’s Threads cross 100 million users
As per reports, Twitter user traffic has decreased ever since July 6, the day Threads became live. Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, has referred to Threads, Meta’s new text-based Instagram app, as the “public square” for communities “that never really embraced Twitter.” As per Mosseri, Meta does not intend to take the place of Twitter.
According to a report by Tech Crunch, after conducting a search using the operator “url:threads.net,” which produced no results, technologist Andy Baio was one of those who noted the change on Twitter. Normally, tweets with links to the website indicated would be retrieved by this search operator, and it is to be noted that many tweets now have links to threads.net.
Further, if a user does not use the operator “url:” then Twitter is returning the tweets of those users who are giving out their Threads username. Many Twitter users have added their Threads username along with their name, like XYZ, threads.net/xyz, or simply added their usernames in their bio. However, the microblogging platform is not returning tweets that have discussions taking place on Threads.
As per Tech Crunch, it is difficult to pin point when exactly this selective blocking started, and Twitter continues to remain unreachable for press questions since the new Twitter head, Musk, has made sure that press queries are replied to by an automated “scat emoji.”
This is not the first time Twitter has done something of this sort. Previously, when Substack introduced its discussion feature, Substack Notes, the microblogging platform selectively blocked links to the point where it was impossible to reply, like, or retweet those tweets. However, the current selective restrictions do not go this far.
Meanwhile, Linda Yaccarino has pointed out that the Twitter traffic is booing rather than tanking. This comes in the hope of reassuring the advertisers. She tweeted that she does not want anyone to be “hanging by a thread,” and reassured that the platform has outdone itself since the previous week, when Twitter recorded the “largest usage day since February.”
This comes as reports suggest that Twitter’s traffic has taken a hit because of Threads. The CEO of Cloudflare, Matthew Prince, claimed that Twitter’s traffic is tanking and continues to be in the same state. According to Similarweb, a company that specialises in web analytics, Twitter traffic dropped by 5% in the first two days following the introduction of Threads, as per a report by CNBC. The company has also noted that traffic has decreased by 11% when compared to the same days last year, according to the figures.
Also Read: Jack Sweeney, owner of bot account tracking Musk’s private jet joins Twitter rival Threads
Though it is still too early to say if Threads is going to replace Twitter or not, the timing of its launch has supported its success, since Twitter is going through a sloppy downfall with all the policies and restrictions that it is announcing in a hurried manner.
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