Should X be scared of Threads? Here’s what users are saying

People are actively embracing new microblog alternatives across Europe, most of all Threads, developed by Meta. We’ve dissected online content to show you how the platform has been received in its first few months of availability.

Threads, Meta’s competitor to Elon Musk’s X, has been available in Europe since December 2023. As social media content is central to our operation here at Neticle, we were eager to check how the new app has been adopted among users in Central Europe, so we’ve dug into online data to understand their opinions.

Out of the five examined countries - Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary - the Germans have posted by far the most content about Threads since the beginning of December. They seem to have embraced the use of the platform the most.

Despite Threads’ tight integration with Instagram, the platform was the most prominent source of Threads’ mentions only in Austria. Hungarians have mentioned it most on Facebook, while for the Polish, Swiss and Germans, it’s appeared in news articles in the largest proportion.

Users are actively embracing new opportunities

In all examined countries, the most engaging posts mentioning Threads weren’t focused on Threads as a new platform - they’re posts talking about what someone posted on Threads, or letting their fans know about their new Threads accounts on other platforms, like YouTube. This shows that it is already a part of everyday social media use, embraced by many. The following chart illustrates this trend very well: it shows the mentions of Threads in video descriptions, where vloggers typically list their availability on various platforms.

Key topics mostly revolved around the start of registration, the competition between platforms, and the various legal concerns raised (for example those that had prevented EU users from accessing Threads prior to December).

At the center of media attention

News content reflects many of the issues and common concerns expressed in this initial period, so let’s review what journalists have focused on.

December began with the breaking news that Meta was to launch Threads in that same month in the EU (after launching overseas in July). At this point, many articles expressed worry that users would only be able to access Threads in read-only mode, and won’t be able to post anything - which did not turn out to be true.

On December 9, the exact launch date became public, along with the report that in its first three months, Threads had already gathered 100 million users. Even though legal complications had been largely overcome by this time, reporters still warned that there might be data privacy problems with automatically linking user data from Instagram.

December 14 - the launch date - saw the biggest mention peak of the whole period. Around this time, news articles also speculated that Threads might be attractive to advertisers who have abandoned X due to Musk’s scandals. At the end of the year, a large number of news outlets in Germany posted a list of the most important events and phenomenons of the year 2023, where the conflict around X and Threads was also featured.

Throughout January, media interest towards Threads dwindled, but was very much reignited at the start of February when several news outlets reported that Threads already had 130 million monthly active users. The events that caused larger mention peaks - like this one and the launch - also resulted in significant positive peaks in the Web Opinion Index (Neticle’s index expressing the online mood).

Following this news, the media went on to talk about a wide variety of topics: how X is threatening to sue Meta over Threads, that AI generated content on Meta will be tagged in the future, that sending DMs has become available and saving posts would soon be. The most recent development that rocked news sites was that Meta will restrict the distribution of political content on Instagram and Threads.

All these large announcements and changes forecast that the online opinion around Threads will inevitably shift in the future. Available features and regulation are still evolving, having a significant effect on user experience. However, overall opinions are currently rather positive in each country - even in Hungary, where users are prone to be much more negative than in other countries.

It is still early days for Threads, and while the number of its users is definitely growing, online mention numbers aren’t exactly exploding all the time (except for special events like changes in regulation). However, the positive opinions and the recently increased media interest definitely reflect great possibilities for the platform. We’ll be keeping an eye on the changes to always let you know where the most important online hubs are to be found.