As Twitter struggles, some in Spokane turn to new social media site: Threads

For several years Spokane photographer John Moore has posted photos on multiple social media platforms. But recently, Moore has made the switch from Twitter to Meta’s new alternative, Threads.

“Hell is better than Twitter,” said Moore, who uses the name Spokane Night Scenes on social media. “I mean, that’s just the jungle. Between the politics and every other kind of thing that goes on over there, that’s literally a jungle. I don’t want to have any part of that.”

As Twitter struggles with sinking ad revenues and a executive team shakeup, according to the New York Times, alternatives to Twitter have sprung up – Bluesky, Mastodon, Former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social, and now Threads, the latest social media platform to be launched by Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta, which also owns Instagram and Facebook.

“I think Threads may be an opportunity for us to promote,” Moore said. “Social media apps always fail if people don’t put in the work. I think it’s going to be helpful when we get into the comfort of using it more often and more people get online.”

Controversy has surrounded Twitter since it was purchased by entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk in October 2022. Concerns around hateful speech, server stability and unfair paywalls have been among the many complaints Musk has faced. Among the most high-profile problems was the stumbling launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign for president.

Threads was launched on July 6 as Twitter’s servers were having issues, leaving many Twitter users unable to use the app.

While Threads has not been around for long, some may begin to see it as an alternative to Twitter.

A variety of public figures have made Threads accounts. Selena Gomez, Katy Perry, Ellen DeGeneres, Kim Kardashian, John Cena, and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are some of the most significant early Threads users. Businesses such as Wendy’s, Reese’s, Nike, Netflix, Peloton, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are all on Threads.

During a couple of hours this week The Spokesman-Review approached and interviewed 20 people about Threads. Nine people had heard of the new platform and seven had created an account.

“Local businesses, whenever there’s a new social media platform, have a great opportunity to get a bigger audience quickly,” Trending Northwest magazine Publisher Erin Peterson said. “I see Threads being a great way for local journalists to connect with the public. Other people who use text as their main medium for communication in their careers would have fantastic opportunities to gain and build an audience, especially in these early days of its growth.”

Since there are far fewer users on Threads than on Twitter, fewer technical issues were expected. However Threads was not immune to problems during its launch.

“We’ve had a lot of people really excited about Threads, especially because there aren’t any ads on there yet. It’s still a really clean social media platform,” Peterson said. “There isn’t a lot of extra distraction, and you’re able to just experience it.”

Musk has taken notice of Threads and has made disparaging comments about Threads and Zuckerberg, including personally challenging Zuckerberg to a cage fight.

When a social media platform first launches, there are opportunities for individuals who are typically unseen to make a name for themselves; many have prioritized making an account on Threads as early as possible.

Within two hours of the launch of Threads, Trending Northwest magazine made an account.

“It’s been our strategy to join as quickly as possible, which definitely helped. We have over 1,000 followers already, and it’s only been a week,” Peterson said. “I project that Threads will become more popular over time as people get used to it. I think the potential is unlimited.”

A variety of local businesses and organizations have made an appearance on Threads already. The Spokane County Library District has an account on Threads. The library created its account to claim their name in case Threads becomes the next big social media platform.

“We haven’t had enough experience to really find anything we didn’t like about it. It seems very similar to Twitter,” said Jane Baker, communication and development director of the Spokane County Library District. “You know social media. Every day it changes. We kind of watch what the trends are and what kind of interactions we get from certain things. We like to promote our services and our resources for any events that we have coming up.”

Fire departments also have been affected by shortcomings of Twitter. On July 1, Musk temporarily limited the number of tweets an individual user could read daily. Standard accounts could view 600 posts daily, and those subscribed to Twitter Blue could view up to 6,000. If a user had reached their maximum threshold, they could no longer view any posts for the remainder of the day, regardless of the significance. This affected local fire departments, some of which tweet warnings about nearby fires and other hazards.

Some fire departments are moving away from social media platforms similar to Twitter. There are other venues that fire departments use to keep the public informed.

“We just don’t refer people to our Twitter handle anymore. There’s a good possibility we will continue that just based on the performance of Facebook,” said Grant County Emergency Specialist Kyle Forman. “You know, we’d rather be really good at one thing than mediocre at several. We have better interaction on our Facebook page, so we invest heavily in the use of our Facebook.”

The Spokane Fire Department has long used an app called PulsePoint rather than relying too heavily on social media to keep the public informed.

“If you’re, you know, just walking around Spokane and you opt in to alerts, you’ll get notified of a cardiac arrest if it’s within a one-fourth of a mile of your location, and then will show you where the AEDs are,” said Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer said, referring to automated external defibrillators, machines that can assist people in cardiac arrest. “We don’t track your location, but when an emergency happens, we ping everybody in the system, and it will pick the closest person.”

Schaeffer believes that PulsePoint is superior to social media.

“Being a public entity, we have to really be pragmatic when it comes to communication because we have to record everything,” Schaeffer said. “Let’s just watch and see what happens and, you know, point people towards the reliable programs that we have in place like PulsePoint. I don’t think we’re abandoning anything. I think we’re just constantly looking at areas to improve and evaluate.”

While Threads is still young, the company has an opportunity for rapid growth due to Twitter’s recent shortcomings. Peterson said, however, that Threads isn’t perfect.

“We’ve transitioned as a society to being more video dominant with our social media usage as evidenced by TikTok and its success,” Peterson said. “Without a really efficient, clean, easy-to-use video interface, I think that it will have some pretty strong limitations there.”