Threads and the Social/Communications Map

Ben Thompson argues that Meta's Threads is not simply a Twitter clone, because it is built as an algorithmically sorted, user-generated content network in the upper right of his Social/Communications Map rather than a chronological network of followed accounts. He says the map shows Twitter moving into that same upper-right quadrant under Elon Musk, with a "For You" tab that promotes tweets from people users don't follow. He notes Threads reached 100 million users in five days by giving new users an algorithmic feed, while Twitter faces the burden of past users who had already left. The article ends by asking whether the abandoned Twitter users left because text-based social networking was not appealing to them.