While the front runners in the 2024 presidential race have yet to show up on Threads, Instagram’s new app aimed to rival Twitter, many of the long-term candidates have been quick to take advantage of the platform’s rapidly growing audience.
« Buckle up and join me on Threads! » Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, wrote in a caption accompanying a selfie of himself and others in a car he posted Thursday: The app had already been downloaded more than 30 million times that morning. , putting it on track to be the fastest downloading app ever.
But so far President Biden, former President Donald J. Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have remained absent from the platform.
And that could be good for Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, who told The Times’ « Hard Fork » podcast on Thursday that he doesn’t expect Thread to become a destination for news or politics, arenas where Twitter has dominated public discourse. .
“I absolutely do not want to rely on difficult news. I don’t think there’s much we can or should do to discourage it on Instagram or in Threads, but I don’t think we will do anything to encourage it, » Mosseri said.
The app, released on Wednesday, was touted as an alternative to Twitter, which many users were disappointed with after it was bought by Elon Musk in October.
Twitter’s lawyers have threatened legal action against Meta, the company that owns Instagram, Facebook and Threads, accusing it of using trade secrets of former Twitter employees to build the new platform. Mister Moss he tweeted Thursday« Competition is fine, cheating is not. »
Mr. Trump has also not been active on Twitter recently, despite Mr. Musk lifting the ban that had been placed on Mr. Trump’s account following the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The former president instead maintained the focus on Truth Social, the right-wing social network that he launched in 2021.
But many of the GOP candidates have started making their proposals on Threads.
Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and former governor of South Carolina, made a video compilation of her campaign events in her first post on the app. “Strong and proud. Not weak and awake,” she wrote on Thursday. “This is the America I see.”
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum released footage of his July 4 campaign appearances in New Hampshire, along with a message Wednesday that he and his wife « couldn’t wait to continue our time here. »
And Will Hurd, a former congressman from Texas, launched a viewer fundraiser on Wednesday.
« Welcome to Threads, » he said in a video posted on the app. « I look forward to continuing the conversation here with you about the issues, my candidacy, where I’ll be and everything else that’s going on in our campaign. »
Francis Suarez, the Republican mayor of Miami, and Larry Elder, a conservative radio host, have also shared their campaign propositions on the platform, as have two candidates running in the Democratic primary: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading skeptic about the vaccines, and Marianne Williamson, a self-help author. Cornel West, a professor and progressive activist running as a third-party candidate, also posted.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur, have also set up accounts, but have yet to publish.
Among the holdouts: former Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, both Republicans.
The White House has not said whether Biden will join Threads. Andrew Bates, White House spokesman, said Thursday that the administration will « keep you all posted if we do. »
