Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has launched Threads, which is a text-based rival to Twitter. It already had more than 5-million sign-ups in the first few hours – but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns.
Threads at the moment is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of social media’s most iconic companies, despite its epic struggles.
The is already live and is available on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries as at 23:00 GMT. Celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Hugh Jackman, as well as media outlets including The Washington Post, Reuters and The Economist already had their accounts active from the app.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, posted on the new platform saying: “Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads.” The app will run with no ads for now, and he offered a shot across the bow at Musk – the pair are known to be bitter rivals, and have even offered to meet each other in a fighting cage to wrestle it out.
Zuckerberg mentioned that it may take some time, but he thought there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully he will. Not too long after that, he wrote: “Just passed 5 million sign ups in the first four hours…”
Introduced as a clear spin-off of Instagram, Threads offers a built-in audience of more than two billion users, thereby sparing the new platform the challenge of starting from scratch. Zuckerberg is well known for taking advantage of Musk’s chaotic ownership of Twitter to push out the new product, which Meta hopes will become the go-to communication channel for celebrities, companies and politicians.
Strategic financial analyst Brian Wieser on Substack said: “It’s as simple as that: if an Instagram user with a large number of followers such as Kardashian or a Bieber or a Messi begins posting on Threads regularly, a new platform could quickly thrive.” Adam Mosseri who is the Instagram chief told users that Threads was intended to build “an open and friendly platform for conversations. The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind.”
Twitter has seen content moderation reduced with glitches and rash decisions scaring away celebrities and major advertisers. Musk then hired advertising executive Linda Yaccarino to steady the ship, but results of change are yet to be seen. Recently, the Tesla tycoon said that he was limiting access to Twitter to ward off AI companies from “scraping” the site to train their technology.
Threads owner Meta has its legion of critics that could slow the site’s development, especially in Europe, despite Instagram’s massive user base.
