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Authored by Benjamin Kew via The Epoch Times,

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s microblogging platform Threads, launched to great acclaim as Instagram’s “Twitter Killer” in July, appears to be showing signs of struggle.

The initial signs for Threads were extremely encouraging.

The platform—nearly a carbon copy of Twitter, now known as X—pulled in a staggering 100 million sign-ups in less than five days.

Forbes senior contributor John Koetsier outlined how Twitter had “imploded” under the leadership of Elon Musk and cited the “instant credibility” and “simplicity” of Threads as an alternative.

Yet nearly two months on from its seemingly successful launch, Zuckerberg’s vision of stealing Twitter’s thunder may be little more than a pipe dream.

Even NBC admitted on Aug. 24 that the platform is “struggling for traction.”

A week after its July 5 launch, daily active Threads users peaked at around 26.7 million, then gradually declined to around 13.5 million by month’s end, it said.

One of the most common theories among conservatives for the platform's underwhelming start is that while Twitter has finally embraced free speech, Threads is a platform governed by strict content moderation and politically driven censorship.

Allum Bokhari, a senior technology reporter at Breitbart News and author of "Deleted: Big Tech's Battle to Erase a Movement and Subvert Democracy," told The Epoch Times that the weakness of Threads lies in its failure to attract subversive content.

“X has become friendlier to edgy, dissident content that polite society would prefer to see banned, and that's precisely why its users remain loyal.”

This photo illustration shows the X logo (formerly Twitter) on a smartphone screen in Los Angeles, California, on July 31, 2023. (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images)

Free Speech Is Not the Only Concern

Yet, issues of free speech are far from the only concern.

Jake Denton, a research associate at the Tech Policy Center for The Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that while X is moving forward with offering new features, Threads still provides a disappointing user experience.

Users eager for a fresh experience encountered “a feed saturated with interactions between mega-corporations and consumer brands as” Mr. Denton said, comparing it to “stumbling into a virtual networking event for their social media managers.”

Not everyone is as pessimistic about the company’s future.

Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, warned that Threads could be waiting for X to experience a crisis that it can take advantage of.

He added that, given Mr. Zuckerberg’s willingness to comply with the demands of the Biden administration, Threads may also benefit from being the app of choice for the U.S. national security state.

“Because Zuckerberg has proven to be such a reliable ally to the Pentagon and State Department, I would not be surprised if Threads begins to be pushed by the U.S. government for dissident groups funded by the U.S. national security state to use while organizing revolutions or resistance movements abroad,” he said, likening it to the State Department promoting Telegram in 2020 for the attempted color revolution in Belarus.

However, others believe that Threads’ commitment to censoring the political fringes will prove fatal to its long-term survival.

Among them is former Harvard professor Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, who argued that Zuckerberg’s best hope is that Elon Musk sabotages his own company.

"Of course, it is always possible that Musk or his appointees will mismanage "X" so badly that the company just implodes,” he continued. “Perhaps Zuckerberg is counting on that.”

Yet given Mr. Musk’s track record of building successful companies, most notably Tesla and SpaceX, some might argue that this possibility remains remote.

Mr. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, remains publicly optimistic, insisting that he will spend the rest of the year developing its product and fighting to retain its users.

"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.”