by US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris joined Instagram Threads after the White House said Elon Musk's sharing of an anti-Semitic X conspiracy theory was “unacceptable”.
Within an hour of joining the rival Meta-owned platform, Biden's profile amassed more than two million followers.
“Fans, it's President Biden,” the US president's official account posted on Threads.
“You are hearing from me today from a new platform, but my message to you has not changed: Right now, we are facing a turning point – one of those challenging moments in history where the decisions we make today will determine the next. decades,” the president said.
Several accounts on rival app X responded to the post, calling for a ceasefire amid Israel's invasion of Gaza and posting the tagline “Free Palestine” along with words of support for the Palestinians.
Mr. Biden's involvement in Threads ahead of the presidential election could boost the platform's legitimacy and bring more followers to the app.
The White House's decision comes as X, formerly of Twitter, is embroiled in a controversy over the platform's owner, Mr. Musk, who approved a post that falsely claimed that Jews “are pushing the exact kind of hate speech against white people that they claim they want people to stop using it against them.”
The conspiracy theory was among the hateful ideas cited by the gunman who carried out the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history, killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
Mr Musk faced immediate backlash for sharing the post at a time when Jews were facing growing hostility due to the Israel-Hamas conflict that began on October 7.
“It is unacceptable to repeat at any time the heinous lie behind the deadliest act of anti-Semitism in American history, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman. he said in a statement.
Watchdog group Media Matters for America earlier said it found ads for companies such as IBM, Apple and Oracle were being placed alongside anti-Semitic content on X.
A number of companies including Apple, Disney, Discovery, Warner Bros and Paramount Global have stopped advertising on X.
The latest incident marked yet another result of X's failure to moderate harmful content.
It also points to the Biden administration's efforts to turn to more social media platforms to engage with users ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Mr Musk responded on Sunday by saying X would file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters “and all those complicit in this fraudulent attack on our company”.
Responding to Tesla Titan's post, Media Matters president Angelo Carusone called Mr. Musk “a bully who threatens unfair lawsuits.”
“Musk admitted that the ads in question ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. If he sues us, we will win,” Mr. Carusone said.
X has not responded By the Independent request for comment.
