Who had the better performance at Thursday night\u2019s presidential debate, X or Threads? Though not the top concern among social media users, it\u2019s one of the questions people are asking themselves after watching the disastrous debate<\/a> play out across the two platforms.<\/p>\n Meta, which nearly a year ago launched<\/a> Threads as a rival to the app formerly known as Twitter, has distanced itself from politics, saying it won\u2019t proactively recommend political content<\/a> to users unless they enable a new setting. X, meanwhile, has historically served as the second screen for real-time events, offering people a place to chat, react and tap into the collective opinions of others. But under Elon Musk\u2019s ownership, the platform has begun to lean more right,<\/a> at least one study indicates, making it less appealing to some of its former users.<\/p>\n So which platform best handled the debate? That depends on who you ask. There were definite differences between how the two platforms managed last night, with some saying X felt more alive, and others asserting that Threads proved that X is no longer necessary.<\/p>\n In terms of sheer numbers, X is still the larger social network, with Musk recently claiming<\/a> the service now reaches 600 million monthly active users, around half of which use the platform daily. While he didn\u2019t clarify if automated accounts or spam bots were included in those figures, X is still larger than Threads, which has at least 150 million monthly active users<\/a>, as of Meta\u2019s last public earnings announcement in April. (However, third-party stats<\/a> show Threads has far beyond that figure now.)<\/p>\n The size of X\u2019s user base lends credence to the argument that the Musk-owned platform felt more active, as there were simply more people posting. Other text-focused social networks, including those from startups like Bluesky and open-source efforts like Mastodon<\/a>, don\u2019t have nearly enough numbers to rival X or Threads on nights like this.<\/p>\n Still, not everyone agrees that volume was the only deciding factor here.<\/p>\n In a Threads post with nearly 800 likes, user Matthew Facciani wrote<\/a>, \u201cThreads was a very useful social media platform to follow this presidential debate. My timeline was full of political discussion and real-time updates. I didn\u2019t miss Twitter\/X at all.\u201d<\/p>\n That same sentiment can be found throughout Threads, as even some newer users<\/a> said they found Threads held up as an \u201cengaging\u201d and \u201cintelligent\u201d social media site. One called the Threads feed during the debates \u201celectric<\/a>.\u201d A few pointed out that it felt like Threads had fewer \u201ctrolls<\/a>\u201d to deal with, compared with X. Others flat-out declared<\/a> Threads was the winner last night.<\/p>\n Others still pointed to technical issues at X, which locked out high-profile users including Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson<\/a>, journalist and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast<\/a>, and others<\/a>, just ahead of the debate\u2019s airing.<\/p>\n Despite these positive reviews, there was still some concern about Threads\u2019 ability to keep up in a real-time news environment. Threads user and technologist Chris Messina noted that Threads\u2019 Trends didn\u2019t immediately include a topic<\/a> that focused on the presidential debate as a whole.<\/p>\n Instead, Threads was surfacing topics that came up during the debate, like the economy or the age difference<\/a> between Trump and Biden. But many of these didn\u2019t appear until an hour or so after the debate began \u2014 in other words, closer to when it ended \u2014 limiting Threads\u2019 use as a real-time news network.<\/p>\n This is not the first time Threads has faced this problem. <\/p>\n When the NYC\/New Jersey area was hit by an earthquake earlier this year,<\/a> the event didn\u2019t start trending on Threads until later in the day. At the time, Meta said that because the earthquake was a regional event and trends are based on national conversations, it may have taken more time<\/a> for enough people to join the conversation. That explanation doesn\u2019t hold up when it comes to Threads\u2019 difficulties keeping up with the presidential debate \u2014 arguably a national conversation if there ever was one.<\/p>\n Meanwhile on X, the debate had its own hashtag (#Debates2024), which helped people discover who was posting about the event. And, similar to Meta\u2019s app, it had tags focused on various side topics or people, like Biden.<\/p>\n Threads, on the other hand, does not have hashtags. Instead, its user interface ignores the hashtag symbol (#), and adds hyperlinks to words that are typed after the symbol is used. This can make it harder to discover topics, as there\u2019s often not one primary tag gaining enough steam to start trending, compared with X. The lack of discoverability of Threads\u2019 tags can lead to decreased usage, too.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also confusion over which tag to use on Threads, as its users often create topics with the format \u201c[Topic<\/em>] Threads.\u201d For example, \u201cTech Threads\u201d is where you\u2019d find the tech community discussions. That convention led to political discussions being split among a wide variety of tags, as some people used a more obvious tag like \u201cpresidential debate\u201d (with or without a space or the year), while others used the format \u201cDebate Threads<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n Threads critics also pointed out that X still has traction, in terms of being referenced by the media. For instance, one user noted<\/a> they hadn\u2019t seen a website, podcast or YouTube clip mention Threads in the context of the presidential debate as of yet. This, of course, is only anecdotal.<\/p>\n Plus, X\u2019s ability to support long-form posts in addition to short ones made it the place where people could share more developed, fleshed-out thoughts about what they had seen on TV. Tech investor Mark Cuban, for instance, effectively wrote a blog post on X<\/a> with his take on the debate.<\/p>\n Threads, however, has a 500-character limit<\/a> on its posts.<\/p>\n
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