Jonathan Levinsky

X and Threads are practically the same from the naked eye. However, one trait that has continuously plagued is what makes users trend using one over the other.

For the past decade, social media has lived in (somewhat) harmony using the former “big four” social media outlets: X, formerly known as Twitter (for those who are quick to anger), Facebook (for moms), Instagram (same thing as Facebook, except its for kids and those who are looking to be “hip” and fly”) and Snapchat (think of it as direct messaging, but cooler).

Out of those four, Twitter was easily the most popular, with celebrities and athletes alike “tweeting” their thoughts and opinions on some of the more controversial topics and events trending in society, and then an average Joe could reply to their tweet as if they were talking to that superstar face-to-face.

In October 2022, the company was sold to Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who changed its name to “X” in April 2023. During that time, social media began to hype up a potential UFC-style wrestling match between Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, the owner and CEO of X’s rival company, Meta. While it turned out to be true, Zuckerberg tore his ACL while training, ending any promise of a billionaire brawl in the near future.

However, prior to taking his not-so-gracious fall, Zuckerberg threw the first punch. This past July, Meta launched its own version of an X style platform: Threads.

I would like to point out that X is still much, much more popular than Threads, despite the fact that Threads enjoyed over one million new users during its first day on the app store. But even then, it still leads me to wonder, where do both apps succeed, and where they fail in comparison.

When creating a new account, both apps ask you the same things; personal information, favorite topics, etc. Something that X does well here, is that once your account is activated, it only suggests topics and accounts to follow based on your preferences. In other words, it lets you lean into its community until you are comfortable enough to expand from there. Only then the controversial topics start to appear on your page. Once you get there, good luck.

Threads seems to have taken the controversial tendencies of X into stride. When I finished creating my account, one of the first things that it showed me were opinion “threads.” It’s the exact same thing as X conversations, it just uses a different name. Like its rival, these threads were based on what I had selected for my preferences. However, and here’s where it gets good, they were the exact opposite of what I wanted to see. Almost every thread was about something I disagreed with logically or morally; sometimes both.

I get it, people have opinions, fine. But when I log onto social media, I also want to see stories and topics that I agree with, just so I can enjoy my experience even a little bit.

Yes, Threads is still young, but that doesn’t mean that it should already be riddled in toxicity and misinformation.

Choose X.