Twitter is blocking links to Meta-led rival Threads. Here what you should know

Twitter is reportedly blocking links to its latest Meta-led rival Threads from its search results page. Threads recently became the fastest app to reach over 100 million downloads, beating generative AI-based chatbot ChatGPT.

The issue was first reported on the Threads app by a user named Andy Baio. Baio noticed that a search using the term ‘url:threads.net’ returned no results, whereas it should have returned all tweets with links to Threads.net websites.

Similarly, other users on Twitter pointed out that they were unable to find the tweets with the Threads link.

However, some users have quickly found a way around Twitter’s new restrictions. To search for posts with Threads links, users can search the micro-blogging platform using the phrase “url:Threads net”.

Reportedly, this is not the first time Twitter has blocked links to a competing application on its platform. Earlier this year, the Elon Musk-led company began restricting access to its tweets with substack links, making it impossible to like, retweet or reply to such tweets. Musk defended the restriction then claiming that Substack was trying to download a massive portion of Twitter’s database to bootstrap their rival to the social media behemoth. 

Rivalry between Meta and Twitter intensifies:

Threads was launched on 6 July 2023, with the aim of becoming “the public conversation app with 1 billion people on it”. Data from web analytics firm Similarweb shows that Twitter’s web traffic has dropped by 11 per cent since the launch of Threads compared to the same time last year, according to the Reuters news agency.

The rivalry between Meta and Twitter has been in full swing recently, with a cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg planned. Twitter has also threatened to sue Meta for unlawfully using the company’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.

Updated: 12 Jul 2023, 12:22 PM IST