After the Short Hype, Threads Is Taking on Water, With Daily Traffic Falling by Half – Infested With Bots and Spam, App Imposes Rate Limits

Lauded by leftists and globalists of all stripes as the ‘Twitter-killer’ alternative, Meta’s hastily put together knock-off copy app ‘Threads’ is already facing rough waters shortly after its release.

While Zuckerberg and the Instagram have tons of experience in this market, it’s ‘all hands on deck’ now, lest the venture sinks in its maiden voyage.

Daily Mail reported:

“Mark Zuckerberg’s new Threads app got off to a hot start but its daily traffic has more than halved in less than a week.”

Launched on July 5, within five days Threads had attracted 100 million users piggybacking on Instagram huge user base – becoming the faster growth than any app in history.

Threads is easy for users to sign up, all you need is an Instagram account. Usernames are transferred over and followers are alerted when someone has enabled their Threads profile.

“Two days after its launch on July 7 it reached peak traffic of around 49 million daily visitors. By July 14, that traffic halved to around 23.6 million, according to data from Similarweb.”

Zuckerberg says he is ‘very optimistic’ about the Threads community gathering tens of millions.

“That’s way ahead of what we expected. The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics and retention. It’ll take time to stabilize, but once we nail that then we’ll focus on growing the community. We’ve run this playbook many times (FB, IG, Stories, Reels, etc) and I’m confident Threads is on a good path too.”

Besides the loss in daily traffic, users have also been spending less and less time per day in the app.

“More data from Similarweb shows that between July 6 and 7 the average user was spending around 20 minutes on the app, but that also dropped to an average of five minutes on July 13 and 14.”

The early indicators suggest the intense initial interest has not turned into a user habit of visiting Threads as often as they might other social apps.

Meanwhile, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri has had to start to implement rate limits to combat a bot infestation.

Deadline reported:

“’Spam attacks have picked up so we’re going to have to get tighter on things like rate limits, which is going to mean more unintentionally limiting active people (false positives)’, Mosseri posted on Threads. ‘If you get caught up those protections let us know’.”

Rate limits are also what Elon Musk implemented in Twitter at the beginning of July ‘to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation’.

But the growing pains are not Threads only issue. Close Congressional scrutiny could pose a problem for Threads’ long-term growth.

Investopedia reported:

“In a letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked the company to hand over documents outlining its content moderation policies relating to Threads, as well as any communications the company may have received from the Biden administration by the end of July, CNBC reported.

[…] ‘In light of Meta’s introduction of a new social media platform, ‘Threads,’ we write to inform you that it is the Committee’s view that the subpoena of February 15 covers material to date relating to Threads’, the letter stated.“

In fact, as of now, the Judiciary Committee is less than pleased with Meta’s collaboration with the investigations.

Jordan could move to hold Zuckerberg in contempt as early as next week, according to Fox Business.

Fox Business reported:

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is strongly considering holding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress this month, a move that could happen as early as next week.

Sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell FOX Business that Meta – formerly known as Facebook – has not provided any internal communications regarding the company’s censorship efforts.

A Meta spokesperson, when reached for comment by FOX Business, stated in response, “We have shared over 50,000 pages of documents in response to the committee’s request and have made nearly a dozen current and former employees available to discuss external and internal issues. We look forward to continuing to work with the committee moving forward.”

Indeed, while Meta thus far has provided documents and responses to the committee, none of them include the specified internal communications Jordan is asking for, a source with direct knowledge tells FOX Business.