As I reported the other day, Mark Zuckerberg is doing what he can to try to undercut Twitter and Elon Musk with the launch of “Threads,” Meta’s faint imitation of Twitter.

Musk is already threatening legal action saying, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” His attorney Alex Spiro sent Zuckerberg a cease and desist letter, accusing Meta of misappropriating Twitter trade secrets and intellectual property. The letter made clear that they think the Meta team got stuff from people who previously worked at Twitter.

But even though Zuckerberg claims the platform has millions of signups, Threads was immediately hit with criticism for censorship as well as collecting information on users—and it’s looking like a dumpster fire.

They were allegedly nuking threads that they didn’t like, such as about the cocaine found at the White House, or that men have penises and women have vaginas.

That was quick pic.twitter.com/ka7fyAeu6j

— shaneyyricch (@shaneyyricch) July 6, 2023

Among the people who faced some immediate censorship was Donald Trump Jr. Like some others from the right side of the aisle, if you tried to follow him, a message popped up asking the user, “Are you sure you want to follow donaldjtrumpjr?” The message also claimed, “This account has repeatedly posted false information that was reviewed by independent fact-checkers or went against our Community Guidelines.”

Trump Jr. posted about it on rival Twitter.

Threads not exactly off to a great start. Hey Instagram, threads is verbal, so the whole skimpy bikini thing is not going to work so well if your influencers can’t actually formulate a sentence… IMHO you may want to rethink cutting off those who can. pic.twitter.com/vBKIOjg8Z8

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 6, 2023

“Threads not exactly off to a great start,” he said. “Hey Instagram, threads is verbal, so the whole skimpy bikini thing is not going to work so well if your influencers can’t actually formulate a sentence….IMHO you may want to rethink cutting off those who can.”

What was funny was Andy Stone, head of communications for Meta, responded on Twitter, “This was an error and shouldn’t have happened. It’s been fixed.”

This was an error and shouldn’t have happened. It’s been fixed.

— Andy Stone (@andymstone) July 7, 2023

They’re likely backtracking because censoring Trump Jr. got a lot of attention.

While Trump Jr. might have gotten a response, there is no built-in way of appealing from such censorship as there is on Twitter.

People aren’t buying that it was just an “error” as Stone claimed, since some other conservatives seemed to be getting hit with immediate censorship—not just Trump Jr.

“Facebook’s Threads is already censoring conservative voices on its platform, asking users if they’re sure they want to follow conservatives because of ‘disinformation,’” tweeted conservative commentator Darren Grimes. “We must keep the blue bird of freedom alive. @elonmusk.”

“Imagine leaving Twitter, the most free speech platform on the internet — owned and operated by one of the greatest free speech advocates of our time — to move to Threads, an app that is already engaging in the Censorship of Conservatives on day one,” conservative commentator Benny Johnson tweeted.

Another right-leaning social media known as “DC_Draino” tweeted: “Just downloaded and signed up for the new Meta app ‘Threads’ meant to imitate Twitter.”

“I posted once about wanting to expose Biden’s corrupt government and they’ve already flagged me for censorship…Great platform Zuck.”

Why would anyone at this point leave Twitter for Threads, unless perhaps they wanted to live in a liberal echo chamber where anything other than the approved narrative was suppressed? Why would you run to a platform that is admitting up front that they are going to data mine you? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.