Twitter traffic plunges after Musk takeover, Threads debut

Twitter’s traffic has plunged since billionaire Elon Musk took control of the social media platform last fall, as longtime tweeters are migrating to alternative platforms such as Meta’s Threads. 

In a tweet Sunday, Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, an internet services company, posted a chart showing Twitter has been on the decline since the start of 2023.

Twitter’s skidding numbers arrive as Meta officially launches Threads, which is widely seen as a new competitor to Twitter and debuted last week. 

As of Monday, Twitter is currently ranked 37 in Cloudflare’s list of top 100 domains, which coincides with the unpopular changes Musk has made to the site in recent months and the launch of Threads and other Twitter alternatives. 

Twitter, which Musk officially purchased last October, drew the ire of its users earlier this month when the platform set a rate limit on the number of posts different account tiers could read each day, the Guardian reported.

The limit was set at 6,000 daily posts for users who are Twitter Blue subscribers and 600 for nonsubscribers. 

Musk has overseen the platform’s various changes, including implementing a different version of Twitter Blue in which users have to pay a monthly subscription to receive a verification check.

Musk also rolled back moderation rules and reinstated previously suspended accounts — notably former President Trump. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Threads hit 100 million sign-ups over the weekend.

Zuckerberg said in a Threads post that the new platform saw some 30 million downloads in the first few hours it became available and reached 70 million sign-ups by Friday. 

“Threads reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet. Can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!” Zuckerberg said Monday in a post on the new platform.