Meta releases Twitter-like app Threads in major challenge to Elon Musk’s troubled platform
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Meta launches Threads, a Twitter-like app seen as a significant competitor to Elon Musk’s troubled microblogging platform.
The “text-based conversation app,” the newest addition to the Meta line of web-based products, debuted Wednesday on Apple’s App Store.
“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” the description reads in part.
Users will be able to “follow and connect directly” with other users “or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”
The free app was available for pre-order, with today’s July 6 launch day. A representative for Instagram or its parent company Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The announcement comes just days after the hashtag #RIPTwitter began trending on social media timelines across the globe.
On Saturday Twitter’s owner Elon Musk angered users of the platform after announcing a limit on how many tweets users would be able to read each day due to “extreme levels of data scraping [and] system manipulation.”
The South African-born billionaire, who acquired Twitter in October of last year for $44 billion, has seen several of its top advertisers step away from the platform amid massive layoffs, resignations, as well as chaos sparked by an ever-growing number of business decisions that have been ridiculed on the website’s own pages.
Meta’s soon-to-be-launched Twitter-like platform could add a list of ongoing troubles faced by the once-respected social media giant.
The new site offers social media users an “opportunity to jump to a platform that can give them many of the things that they want Twitter to continue to be that no longer is,” explained Matt Navarra, a social media consultant.
With News Wire Services
