Threads follows Twitter in limiting number of posts that users can see

Meta’s new social media app Threads says it will limit the amount of posts some users can see—the same action that rival social network Twitter took earlier this month.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri made the announcement in a Monday post on Threads, saying that “spam attacks have picked up so we’re going to have to get tighter on things like rate limits, which is going to mean more unintentionally limiting active people (false positives).”

Twitter was widely criticized for capping the number of posts that can be read. Amid that backlash, Threads launched and within days became one of the most widely downloaded social media apps for U.S. users.

But in blaming spammers, Threads named the same reason that Twitter previously cited when it instituted limits.

Twitter owner Elon Musk initially said Twitter implemented rate limits to stop “data scraping,” but the company later said in a statement the purpose was to “detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors that are harming the platform.” Twitter’s strict rate limits were only in effect for a few days.

There is no timetable for how long the rate limits on Threads will be in place.

Marketed as the companion app to Instagram, Threads last week reached 100 million users faster than any other app, just five days after launching. But it still has much to prove as a long-term competitor to Twitter, said Pinar Yildirim, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies social networks.

“Now, users are going to be weighing which network they prefer,” Yildirim said. “Bots were a major issue that Twitter had . . . . The same thing Threads will have to learn with a growing user base is how to prioritize the best accounts from the worst accounts.”

Data from Google Trends has shown that search interest in the platform has waned since the initial days of its launch. Threads is still not available to download in Europe, because of European Union data privacy regulations.

After Mosseri’s announcement, the company told The Washington Post it had little to add beyond what he posted.