Meta’s Threads app has struggled to gain market share from its larger rival, X, despite a promising launch that quickly garnered 100 million signups. But, how the platforms combat misinformation about the conflict between Israel and Hamas could become a tipping point in boosting Threads’s traction.

The User Experience on X

The search results I found for the Gaza Conflict were a comparison of several key words.

On X, the results in the “Top” tab were all posts from individuals with no apparent credentials and no more than a few thousand followers. All of these posts had a political bent, some supporting Hamas and others detailing Hamas atrocities. These posts are stuffed full of hashtags that may be misspelled to make them more discoverable and shareable.

Notably absent among these “top” results were posts from major news organizations, recognizable journalists, or actual political leaders.

Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur and the most internet-savvy Shark Tank star, said on Threads, “Twitter is a cesspool of misinformation on Israel/Gaza.”

This statement was a good match for my experience. Most of the posts that I read were biased, promoting a particular point of view with no credible source to back up their claims. Others have deemed some videos to be altered.

News Discovery Limited

Further diminishing the impact of links to news stories is Musk’s removal of headlines from posts. A link to an article on another site now shows an article image with the domain watermark, but without a headline. Since it looks nearly identical to an image post that doesn’t link to external content, it’s not evident that clicking the photo will lead to a full story. Musk claims that this was done to make posts look better, but the end result is fewer people clicking on external links.

Contrast of the Threads

When searching for Gaza on Threads, you’ll find results from The Washington Post and various news outlets and journalists, including Reuters, Sky News and CNN. These results often linked to more detailed coverage of the topic.

The search results can be filtered to show posts made by specific members. The majority of these posts are thoughtful and considerate, no matter what opinion the poster has on the Gaza conflict. There was no obvious misinformation, or language that would be considered extreme.

Threads does not have hashtags. Therefore, there are no hashtags on any of the posts. While theoretically one could stuff a Threads posts with keywords, it’s not clear whether that would improve its discoverability. No keyword-stuffed threads appeared in my search.

If X became a street fight, Threads looks more like a quiet reception or networking occasion.

Are Threads a good way to gain market share?

If more users become disillusioned with Twitter’s combative environment and abundance of unreliable information, Threads could have an influx of new users.

The current trend in the industry is not very …read more

Source:: Social Media Explorer

Author: Aaron