As of today, Twitter users have begun noticing that searching for Threads user profiles returns no results. Whether this is intentional or not is unclear but Twitter has a history of doing these shenanigans.
Earlier in 2023, Twitter did the exact same thing with Substack links after the former announced that it would be starting a proprietary service called Notes.
Even using techy workarounds like “url:threads.net” on Twitter still doesn’t return any results tied to Threads accounts.
The “url:” search operator is often used (and it’s an official thing) by users who want to find links connected to a specific URL.
For instance, if you want to find links tied to Threads, you would be using the “url:threads.net” command on Twitter search. But as it seems, even that isn’t working.
But the internet is full of brainy sleuths who cracked the issue. The command “url: threads net” will do the job and find your Threads profiles.
Is Twitter Intentionally Restricting Threads?
Officially, we don’t know. But Twitter is known for pulling this tactic in the past. As I said, Substack is one example of this.
It’s plain to see why Twitter would resort to such underhanded tactics, according to users and experts. Threads is a direct competitor and, based on initial experiences with it, the app looks eerily similar to Twitter.
Moreover, Threads has accrued over 100 million users in less than a week since its launch. It took Twitter around 5 years to achieve the same.
The Guardian reports that Threads definitely looks like a clone of Twitter but, according to them, “with Twitter getting clunkier and progressively less usable since Musk took it over, opening an app and actually being able to see and engage with content smoothly felt like a breath of fresh air.“
So, Threads might actually be better than Twitter at this point in time. The over 100 million users signing up for it should be a testament to this.
As of right now, Threads is available in over 100 countries but it hasn’t breached the EU market yet. The European Union has stricter data privacy rules, so it will take some time before Threads gets here.
When it does, you can be sure I’ll be testing it out and providing firsthand experiences with it. Until then!
Sources
- Indiana Express – Twitter Reportedly Blocking Links to Threads, But There’s a Workaround
- The Guardian – We Tried Threads, Meta’s New Twitter Rival. Here’s What Happened
