Twitter hasn’t been in a great place for months, and that suddenly means that there’s a lot more competition in Twitter-like social media platforms. Mastodon might be the most well-established, but there are many other services vying to be the next place you hang out on the internet, including Post, Substack Notes, T2, the Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky, and soon, Instagram Threads from Meta and Mark Zuckerberg.
That said, the “next Twitter” might not be decided by its app but by its protocol. Mastodon, for example, is built on top of ActivityPub, a W3C-recommended protocol for decentralized social networking, a protocol with support from Tumblr, Flipboard, and maybe even Instagram’s Twitter competitor Threads. Bluesky is building its own protocol, the AT Protocol, which, yes, is focused on decentralized social networking, but also algorithmic choice and portable accounts.
If one of these protocols (or another) really takes off, it could have a foundational impact on the way social networking functions. Instead of having to cross your fingers that one organization or company is a good steward for the app of your choice, many services will theoretically be interoperable with one another. That could open up some really exciting ways for people to talk and post on the internet, which is something we here at The Verge care deeply about. Maybe we’ll all end up gravitating toward yet another centralized platform instead — but I kind of hope we don’t.
Here’s our up-to-date coverage of the competition between Twitter alternatives — some options like Mastodon have been waiting years for this moment.
Oct 14
Bluesky loves news, apparently.I still can’t quite figure out Threads’ position on news, but Bluesky is welcoming journalists with open arms. It just published an FAQ specifically about how press should think about using the platform. I respect the move, Bluesky.
Bluesky for Journalists[blueskyweb.xyz]
Oct 12
Threads is getting an edit button — and you don’t have to pay for it
Illustration: The VergeMeta is starting to roll out an edit feature and “Voice Threads” for its Threads platform, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday. They’re two major new features for Meta’s burgeoning X-like social network — and unlike on X (formerly Twitter), you won’t need to pay a subscription fee to be able to edit your posts for five minutes after they’re published.
Read Article >Posts that are edited will have a little icon next to the timestamp showing that they’ve been revised. You aren’t be able to see an edit history — that’s one advantage X still has over Threads — and Meta spokesperson currently doesn’t have plans to add one, Christine Pai tells The Verge.
Oct 4
Artifact will let you generate images with AI for your posts
Image: ArtifactJust one week after adding the ability to post, Artifact announced on Wednesday that users can now use AI to generate cover art for their content. The company says the feature will add “eye-catching images” that’ll help users better tell their stories.
Read Article >Up until recently, Artifact was an AI-powered news app from Instagram’s co-founders that aggregated news and links around the internet. By adding the ability to directly share and personalize content, it’s becoming even more of a rival to Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).
Oct 4
It’s not just everyday users that seem to have cooled on Threads.KTLA has had a look around Meta’s X/Twitter competitor and points out that several major brands, including the BBC, CBS, and the NFL, have quietly stopped posting on Threads from their main accounts. Those that have continued are seeing limited engagement, which makes sense given how overall user numbers have dipped (Meta, obviously, is reportedly working hard on changing this).
Sep 27
Artifact is becoming Twitter, too
Image: ArtifactArtifact, the AI-powered news app from Instagram’s co-founders, is adding a major new feature: the ability to post. So far, the app has been an aggregator for news and links from around the internet, but you’re going to be able to add posts directly to the app.
Read Article >Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Artifact, announced the new features onstage in a conversation with Casey Newton at the Code Conference on Wednesday. The new feature is a logical next step from Artifact’s recently launched update that lets users share links. This new feature means you won’t just be limited to links; your posts can include things like a title, text, and photos. The posts will also have unique URLs, which should make them easier to share on different apps and services.
Sep 26
Meta says Threads account deletion is coming this year.Soon after Meta’s Instagram-based Twitter competitor launched, some of the millions of people who activated Threads noticed a small issue. Once you create an account on Threads, the only way to delete it is to delete your Instagram account, too.
However, Meta chief privacy officer Michel Protti said during the TechCrunch Disrupt event that Meta will launch individual deletion for Threads accounts by December. Another situation it’s working on handling is fediverse support for situations like “what happens when a Threads post goes to another server and is then deleted by the author.”
Sep 21
Mastodon gets better search, onboarding, and cross-server interactions
Image: The VergeMastodon, the federated microblogging platform, has been updated to version 4.2, which comes with massive improvements to search and the web interface, particularly for logged-out and first-time users.
Read Article >One of Mastodon’s many charming qualities is that, unlike
TwitterX, Bluesky, Instagram, and most other social media platforms, the user base is split across thousands of instances, each of which can decide to federate with or block any of the others.Sep 18
T2 is now Pebble.One of the many Twitter alternatives has a new name (via TechCrunch). According to the Pebble account on Pebble:
Why Pebble? 🪨 A small stone can create waves far beyond its size. Similarly, every Pebble user has the potential to make a huge splash in our community. Here’s to the ripples we all create together!
Pebble can now also use AI to suggest posts or replies. “We want to make sure that you see great content, that you’re posting great content, and that you’re interacting with the community,” CEO Gabor Cselle said in an interview with Wired.
Sep 13
Bluesky now has more than one million users.The Twitter alternative is still in a closed beta. “Our current focus is on preparing to open up and getting the network to a state that can support many more users,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the milestone.
I was a big fan of Bluesky earlier this year, but I’ve recently been doing my microblogging on Threads.
Reaching 1 Million Users[blueskyweb.xyz]
Aug 21
Meta may launch a Threads web version early this week
Illustration: The VergeMeta will launch the web version of Threads, its competitor to X (formerly known as Twitter) early this week, reports The Wall Street Journal. A web version has been frustratingly missing since the short-form posting service began.
Read Article >Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is working on adding the feature along with better search (well, search at all, really — right now, you can only search for usernames on the platform) earlier this month, and that it would be ready in “the next few weeks.”
Aug 13
Instagram’s Threads has lost almost 80 percent of its daily active Android users.A blog post by analytics firm Similarweb says data from the Android Threads app show the social network has fallen to 10.3 million daily active Android users as of August 7th. That’s down from a July 7th peak of 49.3 million.
Earlier this month, both Gizmodo and CNN cited Similarweb data while reporting the Threads slump. Whether Threads could still go the distance remains to be seen, but Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is keeping a positive face for investors.
Threads App Usage Down 79% After a Month[Similarweb]
Jul 31
BBC launches an ‘experimental’ Mastodon server
Illustration: The VergeThe BBC has launched its own “experimental” Mastodon server, marking one of the first major news outlets to establish an instance on the Twitter alternative. You can access the server at social.bbc, which encompasses posts from a handful of BBC accounts, including BBC Radio 4, BBC Taster, BBC Research & Development, and a few more.
Read Article >The BBC says the outlet will try out the server for six months before it decides “whether and how to continue.” While you can’t actually create accounts or posts on the server, you can still leave replies from the instance that you’re using, as well as follow its accounts.
Jul 28
Bluesky is replacing the “What’s Hot” feed with a “Discover” feed.The new feed mixes personalized recommendations for you with things that are trending, according to a blog post from Bluesky. But thanks to Bluesky’s custom feeds feature, if you don’t like it, you can remove it.
Custom Feeds[blueskyweb.xyz]
Jul 25
Yes, the Threads desktop web site is coming.No surprise, but Adam Mosseri tells Casey Newton web Threads is indeed en route.
Jul 25
Wes Davis and Jay Peters
Threads is rolling out its Following feed
Illustration: The VergeOne of Instagram Threads’ most requested features is finally here: the Following tab that lets you see only the people you, er, follow. “Ask and you shall receive,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads quoting a user asking for the feature.
Read Article >For those of us who have the Following feed, we can make it appear and disappear by tapping the home icon or the Threads logo at the top of the page. Annoyingly, if you reopen the app after it fully shuts down, it reverts to the “For You” feed, meaning you’ll have to know where to look to bring the Following feed up again — whether that’s a bug or not remains to be seen.
Jul 25
Twitter alternatives for the Musk-averse
Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeTwitter users (and ex-users) are still watching to see what the next chapter will be in the soap opera called “What Elon Musk Will Do With Twitter Next.” Oops — sorry. It’s no longer Twitter now, is it? It’s some weird new entity called “X.”
Read Article >If you’re becoming bored with the whole thing and you want to continue following social networking without having to deal with Twitter (let’s still call it that for now), where do you go?
Jul 24
Stanford researchers find Mastodon has a massive child abuse material problem
Illustration: The VergeMastodon, the decentralized network viewed as a viable alternative to Twitter, is rife with child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to a new study from Stanford’s Internet Observatory (via The Washington Post). In just two days, researchers found 112 instances of known CSAM across 325,000 posts on the platform — with the first instance showing up after just five minutes of searching.
Read Article >To conduct its research, the Internet Observatory scanned the 25 most popular Mastodon instances for CSAM. Researchers also employed Google’s SafeSearch API to identify explicit images, along with PhotoDNA, a tool that helps find flagged CSAM. During its search, the team found 554 pieces of content that matched hashtags or keywords often used by child sexual abuse groups online, all of which were identified as explicit in the “highest confidence” by Google SafeSearch.
Jul 24
TikTok is adding text posts
Image: TikTokTikTok users can now post text-based updates in addition to videos and series of photos — just as platforms like Meta’s Threads are vying to take on Twitter’s microblogging dominance.
Read Article >Text posts appear similar to Instagram Stories visually: users can add a background color, edit how text appears, and add music and stickers to the post. Posts have a 1,000-character limit (yes, I tested it to find out). Other users can also engage with the post similar to how they interact with video — by stitching, dueting, and commenting.
Jul 14
What’s next for Threads
Illustration by William Joel / The VergeNo one, including the top leadership at Meta, expected Threads to be such a runaway, early success, having now amassed more than 110 million sign-ups in just over a week.
Read Article >At the opening of Meta’s internal Q&A for employees yesterday (which a source let me tune into), a sizzle reel showed some of the early Threads posts from celebrities and brands, along with a graphic depicting how sign-ups soared to over 70 million in just two days. It was a deserved victory lap for a company that hasn’t launched a successful standalone app from scratch since… forever.
Jul 12
Mastodon’s flagship server is down due to maintenance.“The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit,” mastodon.social is unreachable at the moment, but not because of DNS problems (for once) or Instagram Threads.
It’s actually undergoing maintenance that’s only supposed to cause twenty minutes or so of downtime.
Update: And right on schedule, it’s back up!
Database upgrade – Maintenance details - mastodon.social Status[status.mastodon.social]
Jul 10
Well, the Taliban wants you to know it endorses Twitter over Instagram’s Threads.That’s not something I thought I’d be typing today, but what else is new? Anas Haqqani, a Taliban leader, tweeted his support of Twitter, saying other competitors can’t replace it (via Vice Motherboard).
He lauds its “freedom of speech,” calling Meta “intolerant.”
Vice quotes Aram Shabanian, an OSINT manager for nonpartisan think tank New Lines Institute, who is surprised the Taliban endorses Twitter:
“Zuckerberg is clearly the Mullah Omar of this situation,” Shabanian said, referring to the founder of the Taliban and previous ruler of Afghanistan. “You may not like him, but at least you know what you’re getting...”
“Unlike going with Musk, who represents a lawless, profit-driven society. Musk is all balls, no shaft, as the ancient Armenian proverb goes.”
Jul 10
Instagram Threads bosses Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri are just beside themselves.The two posted on Threads today, with Zuckerberg posting that the march to 100 million users of the new Twitter clone over the last five days has been mostly organic.
Mosseri, who heads up Instagram, said in a post he can’t wrap his mind around the platform’s early success. Mosseri has previously said that ads are an eventual “champagne problem.” One wonders if the company might not be ready to pop the cork sooner than expected.
Jul 9
Twitter’s traffic is taking a dive, according to Cloudflare’s CEO.Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince posted a graph to both Threads and Twitter today (Cloudflare’s communications VP Daniella Vallurupalli confirmed it was him) showing what he says is Twitter’s DNS ranking from January to now.
It’s, uh, not a great story!
Twitter alternative Threads, meanwhile, has been growing explosively — it’s less than three million from the 100 million user mark. It debuted on Wednesday.
Jul 9
There’s a way to install Threads on Windows 11, if that’s important to you.Windows Central shows you how to get the Threads app installed using Windows Subsystem for Android, a feature that allows you to install and use Android apps on your Windows 11 machine.
Threads, sort of a spin-off of Instagram that wants to be the new Twitter, reached 95 million users overnight after less than a week, wildly outpacing other, similar clones.
Jul 8
Meanwhile, on Threads.Threads has quickly blown past the other Twitter alternatives in terms of registered accounts. The highest account number badge I’ve seen on Instagram so far this morning puts its count at over 86 million.
At the current pace, it’s likely Threads will hit 100 million today.
Zuck engages the brands. Screenshot: Richard Lawler / The Verge