Zuck Can’t Buy Friends: Twitter Clone Threads Suffers 70% Drop in User Engagement

Threads, the Twitter clone launched by Facebook (now known as Meta), has suffered a massive drop in user engagement. One of Silicon Valley’s key metrics, daily active users, has plummeted by 70 percent since its initial launch.

Forbes reports that since its launch, Threads, the new social media platform introduced by Facebook, has seen a dramatic decline in user engagement, with a sharp dropoff in daily active users and average usage duration. Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter Clone has experienced a nearly 70 percent decline in the number of daily active users since its peak on July 7.

The platform, which was initially hailed as a potential competitor to Twitter (now rebranded as simply “X”) has seen its active user base fall from 44 million to around 13 million in a matter of weeks.

The average daily time spent on the app has also seen a significant decrease. At launch, users were spending an average of 19 minutes per day on the platform. This figure has now dropped to just four minutes, indicating a sharp decline in user engagement.

Threads enjoyed an explosive start. The platform reported hitting 100 million sign-ups within the first week of its launch. However, as Lia Haberman, a social media marketing lecturer and adjunct professor at UCLA, explains, “It is wholly irrelevant how many people sign up. What matters is the level of engagement and interaction.”

In response to the declining user engagement, Facebook is reportedly planning to introduce new features to the platform. The aim is to improve the user experience and increase engagement, although specifics about these new features have not been disclosed.

Despite the challenges, Mark Zuckerberg remains optimistic about the potential of Threads, stating in a post on his new app, “I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully, we will.”

Read more at Forbes here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan