The Fracturing of Social Media

When Meta launched Threads in July, the platform rocketed past 100 million users in the first few days. As many headlines have noted, that number has dropped to around 10 million daily active users. (The number is for Android devices, so it’s inevitably higher than that, but the information isn’t public. While I’m writing this, Threads is the number-one free app on the Apple App Store; X is number 78.) Some outlets have characterized this as “Twitter's Rival Threads Is Already Unraveling,” but I’m wondering if something else is going on.

Since Threads launched, Twitter has made a few moves that have shocked its user base. The first was branding the company to X. The blue became black. The sleek became “distressed jeans.” Tweet became Post, Retweet became Repost, and Elon Musk somehow found a way to throw all of Twitter’s brand equity out the window. 

The second move was Musk announcing that he would do away with the block feature. By removing the block, it would be nearly impossible to protect yourself from bots, spam accounts, and harassment. If this were the case, the site would become almost unusable overnight, especially for users with large followings who block more people. But it would also potentially be dangerous for women to be on, as they would have no defense against harassment from violent men. 

The third move is the TikTokification of the algorithm. It’s become increasingly clear that X has tweaked their algorithm to be more in line with TikTok’s interest-based algorithm. The fact that, for seemingly no reason at all, I’ve seen more and more accounts along the lines of “Insane Reality Leaks,” “Non Aesthetic Things,” and “No Context Humans” showing up on my feed is a clue. You might be thinking these are appearing because algorithms are a reflection of the user’s interests. Yes, that’s partially true. But they are also a reflection of our collective interest, rewarding content that gains the most attention by pushing it to other users to see if it gets their attention too. Not to mention just how generic these accounts are. Even if that collective interest portion of the algorithm is only 10 percent, that’s 10 percent more content I’m seeing that I didn’t get on the site to see. It interrupts the content that I came here for—and it works, draining my attention. It works because that kind of content is designed for virality, playing to your basest emotions (fear, anxiety, worry, surprise) to capture your attention. It’s a vicious feedback loop that is actively working against us. I guess I could just switch to the Following tab. But it’s still saying something that the algorithm of the For You tab has nowhere near the accuracy of TikTok. It’s a fire hydrant spray of dumpster fire content.

All three of these recent developments are making the site increasingly unusable, and, for that reason, slowly and surely, more people are posting, “I’m on Bluesky, here’s an invite code,” or as I saw the other day on Threads, “I finally deactivated my X account and I’m only going to be here on Threads. I feel free!” The point here isn’t to make the case that Threads is good and X is bad. It’s to point out another thing that I think we started to see when Instagram introduced Reels, copying TikTok—and that is the fracturing of social media.

More Networks Than Before

Back in 2014, social media was much simpler. Everyone was essentially on Facebook, Instagram, and maybe Twitter. Snapchat was starting to find its place but began its decline soon after Instagram introduced Stories. But this was before Facebook was hijacked as a propaganda machine during the 2016 election, TikTok stole everyone’s attention from Instagram, and, of course, before Elon Musk bought Twitter. All of the major platforms have experienced a crisis in one form or another over the past six years that has changed the way we use social media. While never the biggest platform, Twitter had been the steadiest throughout all the turbulence. That is no longer the case. 

Now Threads, Substack, and Bluesky are all offering an alternative to Twitter. I’m not sure any of them will ever have more active users than Twitter. But that’s not the point. I’m starting to think there won’t be a winner in the social media landscape because the landscape itself is changing. Instead of a competition to be the biggest platform, social media will fracture into several smaller networks, with people choosing which platform they want to be on based on where the people they want to follow are and the platform’s culture.

Already, I’m seeing people I follow(ed) on Twitter who deleted their account show up on Threads, or they’ve simply opted to use Threads more because they like it more. You can see their preferences changing and forming in real time because they talk about it. “I like Threads more because…”; “I’m staying on X because…”; “I’m enjoying Bluesky because…” People are finding their place because there are actual options for the first time in ages.

Let me illustrate this with a simple anecdote using the Moores of evangelicalism: Beth Moore and Russell Moore. Beth Moore has not even created a Threads account yet. She’s not there at all. And despite all of the changes on X, she continues to post away, regularly replying to people and maintaining her usual engagement. 

On the other hand, Russell Moore has all but abandoned X. He posts links to his podcasts and reposts people who tag him in things, but that’s it. But if you follow him on Threads—where he has significantly fewer followers (187K on X vs. 11.3K on Threads)—he’s posting his thoughts, replying to people, and carrying on conversations just like he used to do on Twitter. 

Beth and Russell are real-life friends who are promoting their recent books by doing events together, yet for some reason that I’m not sure they’re even entirely conscious of, they have chosen entirely different networks to spend the majority of their time on. And I see this dynamic at work with many people who have nowhere near the platform of these two (or even much greater than them).

The Internet Is Shrinking

If I’m right, this means that the internet is breaking up. We might be collectively choosing to leave behind the dream of a “digital public square” and instead finding ourselves in smaller and smaller micro-communities that are first filtered by the platform we choose and then filtered again by that particular platform’s algorithm. Is this a good thing? Well, like most things, there are potential pros and cons.

The worst-case scenario would be that more people will find themselves in smaller and smaller echo chambers than before. The algorithm will become so attuned to their desires that it will truly be a black mirror that reflects them back to themselves, lulling them asleep to the world beyond their noses like Narcissus at the pond. One can only hope these communities would be small enough that it wouldn’t pose any real-world threat, but it’s impossible to say for sure.

The best-case scenario is that social media starts to become social again, facilitating conversations between individuals instead of being a place to broadcast your hottest take for the most outrageous reactions. Virality as we know it would change, as it would be more difficult for content to hop platforms and break through to audiences it wasn’t intended for. We all might just need social media less because our limbic system isn’t constantly triggered by it. 

And in either of these scenarios, this paragraph from Ryan Broderick vividly captures what might well be our future on the internet.

“I assume TikTok will be mined for pop culture the way Twitter was, but it doesn’t really work the same way. Which means our near future will most likely be streaming shows referencing memes you’ve never heard of featuring talent famous on an app you only half-recognize while the news on your TV — which you watch clips of on YouTube — tells you about Jason Bateman’s new podcast, which is apparently very popular, which you can watch it, not listen to it, on a streaming app you might not have.”

For those of us who make content, this could have a lot of implications that I need to think through more. But for now, I’m simply noticing what I think might be going on. It’s not a race to the top; it’s a reshuffling where everyone has a place on their platform of choice. If the internet starts to get smaller, it might feel like as big of a shift as it did when we started to realize the internet was getting bigger.