Threads vs Twitter
Join our Instagram Live about Threads, the new social media app
Dear Subscribers,
We hope you are all doing well.
Out of curiosity, have you heard of ‘Threads’? You probably have. But if you haven’t, it is a text-based social media app that was recently launched by Instagram. It is essentially Meta’s version of Twitter. And it is arguably a response to the increasing dissatisfaction with Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter since he acquired the company in October 2022.
This is a big deal because text-based social media is one of the last forms of social media that is not dominated by a company owned by Meta. But that is quickly changing: Threads reached 100 million users in just five days, so it could easily catch up with Twitter’s 360 million users in the near future.
Whether you’ve heard of Threads before or you are just hearing of it now, you might not have considered the competition law implications of this new development.
Fortunately, we have, and we are excited to let you know that Temidayo and Folakunmi will be having a short conversation on Sunday on Instagram Live to discuss some of these implications.
The main discussion will be approx. 30 minutes and will focus on the following questions: does this constitute a tying arrangement? If so, is it an abuse of dominance? Did Threads anticompetitively hire Twitter’s employees? And is it exploitative for Meta to extract more data through Threads? After which, there will be some time for questions.
We look forward to having you there!
Editorial Team
Compedia