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Threads vs. Twitter: the liminal border between culture and politics

Adam Mosseri wants Threads to be a platform for culture rather than politics. Can the twain ever be separated?

Neel Dozome
UX Collective
9 min readJul 14, 2023

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937)

Meta’s Threads is a runaway success. It is claimed that the platform reached 100 million users in only five days. News about it dominates the blogosphere.

Threads, however, has its critics. In the design community, the new platform has been criticised for not allowing non-Instagram users to sign up; not possessing a “Following” feed (as of writing, Threads users see what the platform displays and users do not have the option of curating their own feed); and, no chat/messaging functionality. Additionally, I’ve seen discussions on the platform between type designers who feel the logo buttons are too dark against its white background and cause retina burn or fatigue.

Writing in Fast Company, Jesus Diaz states that: “Threads is lacking the infrastructure for doing what Twitter actually excels at helping people discover news, live sports, and events — and talk about those things in real-time.” It seems this is intentional rather an oversight. Adam Mosseri, who is running point on the app for Meta, has been quoted: “politics and hard news aren’t ‘worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or…

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Neel Dozome

I write about graphic culture and technology with a particular focus on type design and UX/GameDev.

Responses (15)

What are your thoughts?

The essay is quite long and complex, potentially making it difficult for some readers to follow. It covers a lot of ground and could benefit from more focus or clearer structuring.

7

You and I keep our peace and peace lives. It can be as contagious as anger, but lasts longer. Anger is self-destructive.

5

The essay does a commendable job of interweaving various disciplines, including politics, art, media studies, and social media.

7