The White House on Monday launched accounts on Metaā€™s Threads service for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, gaining a sizable following on an app that competes with Elon Muskā€™s X.

Accounts on Threads were also established for the first lady and second gentleman as well as for the White House itself. Bidenā€™s account racked up 2 million followers within an hour of its debut.

The Threads push comes after Musk last week called an antisemitic conspiracy theory ā€œthe actual truthā€ on X to his 163 million listed followers. He also said some ā€œJewish communitiesā€ promote ā€œanti-whiteā€ messaging and views, calling out the Anti-Defamation League and minorities. White House officials repeatedly rebuked Musk for what they called ā€œanti-semitic rhetoricā€ on X over the last week.

Several major advertisers including Apple and Disney subsequently paused their spending on X. Musk defended himself on Sunday, without apologizing or rescinding his statements.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Considering much of the Fediverse immediately pledged not to federate with them (for good reason, frankly), maybe they took the hint?

    • atocci@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I hope theyā€™re still working on it though because I would like to have the option to follow the people who use Threads while not using Threads myself.