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Who’s actually using Threads? Young protesters in Taiwan

Despite Meta’s promise to crack down on political content in the app, Taiwanese activists are using it to organize.

As thousands of people gathered outside Taiwan’s legislature on Tuesday to protest against a bill that would give more power to China-friendly parties, Yuan, who was volunteering at a nearby church, noticed that the large crowd was running short on supplies. Demonstrators at a protest outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan on May 24, 2024.While young Taiwanese users discuss everything from relationships to celebrity gossip on Threads, the app has gradually become a gathering space for progressives, who favor independence from China to defend the island’s democracy. Katherine Chen, a communications professor at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan who also works on Meta’s Oversight Board, told Rest of World that Threads has created a bubble for young, progressive Taiwanese people, with less interference from older internet users and advertisements.

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