Twitter CEO says platform’s community ‘can never be duplicated’ after Meta rolls out Threads

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino touted Twitter’s community as “irreplaceable” as she seemingly reacted to the recent debut of competitor app Threads from Meta Platforms.

“On Twitter, everyone’s voice matters. Whether you’re here to watch history unfold, discover REAL-TIME information all over the world, share your opinions, or learn about others – on Twitter YOU can be real,” she said Thursday. “YOU built the Twitter community. And that’s irreplaceable.” 

Yaccarino continued by noting Twitter, which she called users’ “public square,” was “often imitated – but the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”

Twitter, which owner Elon Musk took private in November, reported having a total of about 237.8 million average monetizable daily active users in late July 2022, according to its final quarterly earnings report.

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Yaccarino, who has held the post for about a month, sent the tweet just a day after Meta rolled out Threads.

In a post announcing the new app, Meta Platforms said Threads offered a “new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.” It has an interconnection with the Instagram app and a feed that has some resemblances to Twitter’s.

Reports in mid-May said that Meta had a text-based app in the works, with the potential for it to roll out in the summer. Threads showed up in Apple’s App Store earlier in the week with an expected launch date of Thursday, ultimately releasing a day earlier than that.

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By Thursday morning, the new app garnered 30 million sign-ups, according to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He has a following of 1.3 million on the platform so far.

Musk also reacted to Threads’ debut, including using a laughing emoji to reply to a tweet that suggested Threads was mostly copied and pasted from Instagram and Twitter.

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Lawrence Richards contributed to this report