Meta’s Threads pivots to fan-friendly feeds after rival Bluesky’s user growth

The microblogging wars are in full swing. In recent weeks, Bluesky has become the hottest social media platform for the short-term growth after the 2024 election. And while X owner Elon Musk may be too busy with other matters to care much about that (for now), Meta’s Adam Mosseri seems to be more concerned. Yesterday, he announced changes to Threads that appear to be a direct response to Bluesky’s recent success.

Threads “rebalance”

Threads is a microblogging site that has always been different from X/Twitter, although it is often considered X’s closest competitor (well, until Bluesky left this month). Twitter used to be about connecting with the people you, the user, wanted to follow. Often, they may be celebrities, politicians, or other notable figures, but mostly X/Twitter users are on stage to follow their friends and colleagues—and follow conversations in real time.

Threads, since their introduction last year, have worked differently. While you can follow your friends and colleagues, the platform focuses on connecting regular users with brands, influencers, and other creators who use the platform full-time. This is what the Threads algorithm has always been designed for—it shows you content from people you don’t really know or follow. In this way, Threads is very similar to TikTok, which is built for discovery.

But Threads, like all other social networks, wants to see user growth. So with the large numbers of users leaving X for Bluesky in recent weeks, Meta is clearly looking for action. However, people who join Bluesky seem to want a more Twitter-like experience than what Threads offers. They want a platform where they can see content from people they choose to follow and easily see posts in chronological order.

In other words, they want a platform less about availability and more about personal choice.

Enter the Threads pivot: In a post on Threads yesterday, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, who also directs the platform, said it is “rebalancing” to “prioritize content for the people you follow.” Mosseri explained that this means users will see “less recommended content from accounts you don’t follow and more posts from accounts you do starting today.”

In other words, Threads is becoming like Bluesky or traditional Twitter.

But some series creators are not happy

Any major change in the algorithm will make some users happy and upset others. In this case, the Threads change seems to have upset many professional content creators, brands, and small businesses who use Threads in hopes of building a large following through viral content.

When Mosseri announced the change, he explained, “To you creatives out there, you should see offline access go down and online access go up.”

What this means is that the acquisition traffic that creators enjoyed from followers will likely decrease—or even disappear. But Mosseri also posits the change as a good thing, meaning that people who actually follow a creator will now (probably) see more of that creator’s work in their feeds.

However, there’s a good chance that if a fan was already invested in that creator’s work, they’ve already seen the content. This is why some creators have trouble seeing how this change really benefits them. Threads algorithm change seems to weaken their ability to get followers.

The Bluesky effect

Over on Bluesky, all those millions of new users apparently seem to care about using the platform to follow the people they want and therefore aren’t that interested in finding out. And for now, at least, Wires seems to be chasing those users in hopes of growth.

Whether the Threads will succeed in that goal remains to be seen. The exodus from X in recent weeks seems to be driven by users flocking to Bluesky, which feels a lot like golden age Twitter. The platform has gained millions of new accounts since the election and recently surpassed 20 million users, according to a newly launched website that has been tracking its growth.

While Threads has been billed as a Twitter competitor, it has never felt like Twitter. Meta clearly wants to change that.

On the other hand, Mosseri admitted that the new changes coming to Threads are not the final word. “This is definitely a work in progress—balancing the ability to reach fans and overall engagement is tricky—thanks for your patience and keep the feedback coming,” he wrote.