WASHINGTON -- A week after Meta launched Threads, a Twitter doppelgänger disguised as Instagram-but-for-text, Washington’s professional posters are watching it closely, curious to see whether it will knit together a viable online community or soon unravel like so many other hopes to replace the original microblogging platform.
This isn’t the first time Capitol Hill’s extremely online set wondered whether a new app might usurp Twitter as their time suck of choice. In the wake of Elon Musk buying Twitter and promptly firing the majority of its workforce last year, Washington looked at alternatives like Mastodon and Post. But even as Twitter slowly burns — the platform has been riddled with bugs, bots and Bitcoin bros since Musk took over — those apps have been flashes in the pan, with numbers of users fizzling out after a burst of growth.
When CQ Roll Call asked communications and digital staffers back in December if they thought Twitter might be dethroned as Washington’s digital watercooler of choice, they were rightly skeptical. “Twitter isn’t going anywhere,” said one aide.
