Monday, September 9, 2024, 00:29
Since Elon Musk Twitter has acquired and renamed X, the social network has been the protagonist of countless controversies: first for the dismissal of almost all employees, then through the introduction of a payment system for verified accounts, and now because of the proliferation of ultras that spread wrong information and promote hateings.
Musk himself uses the watchtower that offers its nearly 200 million followers to show their sounding support for populism of figures such as Donald Trump or Javier Milei and to certify their turn on the right. “I had never been active in politics, but now I think that civilization is about to collapse,” he justified this week. “If we want freedom and meritocracy, Trump has to win.”
With each of these controversies, thousands of users shout in heaven and demand a boycott of X. Even many of their advertisers have decided to leave, and Musk has fired them with an elegant “they fuck that”.
The truth according to Trump
It is the perfect breeding ground for other social networks to appear that are presented as alternatives for X. Interestingly enough, Trump Trump – whose Twitter account was suspended after the attack on the Capitol and before Musk acquired the company – who launched one of the first stone with the truth (Ctress), a clone of the Kloon of the Kloon. And it is a nest of denialism, Bulos and half truths appreciated with a value of around 4,000 million euros. But the business community has no great attraction: it only went $ 837,000 in the second quarter of the year, when the number of users hit the 800,000.
The attractiveness of decentralization
Some more successful has had a mastodon, a decentralized social network in which users are part of different groups, each of which manages his own server -and moderation, so some feel more censored than in X -although they can communicate with someone. Until the end of October 2022, Mastodon was a nichet network with fewer than four million users. But when Musk Twitter acquired, the transfer was considerable: in a year he multiplied by 2.5 and tripled last February.
Nevertheless, they are very discreet figures for the large platforms, and many of those who only pissed off were migrated, in the event that the critical mass is not sufficiently created, so that the growth and interest are maintained. In fact, the number of users and servers remains flat, but that of active users is considerably in a falling curve that threatens to reach the point from which it has left. Ultimately, a generalist network needs a great diversity to be attractive, and Mastodon appeals to the niche.
The son who threatens his father
Another competitor who gives enough to talk about is Bluesky, who was born in Twitter atezem as a decentralized network experiment, similar to Mastodon, and that left the ship to continue his own course with the arrival of Musk. The interface and the shape of use are very similar to those of the original, so much that a non -expert eye can confuse it perfectly.
And those who have been using Twitter for a long time will feel at the start of the social network, because Bluesky shows the messages chronologically and without algorithm that we choose what we see. It is also easier and has clear shortcomings such as the possibility of publishing videos or sending direct messages.
In any case, it is never intended as a huge alternative to Twitter, and shows that this was only accessible through invitation. This requirement was eliminated on 7 February and the number of daily records went from 62,000 to nearly 900,000 in just two days. Now the X -blocking in Brazil has meant a similar boost: in three days it has added a million users.
Now is the one who laughs Zuckerberg
Of the problems of X, not only benefits small social networks from Open Source. Also competitors that Musk laughed at their rebellion waters. This is the case of Mark Zuckerberg and his threads, the social network launched within Instagram that copied the example of Twitter. And that is one of the most important differences: both are united, so you can’t have threads without Instagram. Moreover, the first is a platform that only followers can follow in the second, so it is more intimate and is only accessible via mobile devices. But in exchange, it offers messages of a maximum of 500 characters and videos of up to five minutes, both twice as X.
At the moment it is the only Twitter copy that can be overshadowed, because it has approximately 33 million active users per day and has doubled it monthly between October 2023 and August 2024, until it reaches 200 million. It is still a figure far from the 550 million of those who have access to X every month.
