Instagram launches Twitter competitor Threads

Meta has launched its rival to Twitter. Thread, the text-based social media app is linked to user’s Instagram accounts and enables users to post short updates, including text up to 500 characters; links; photos; and videos up to 5 minutes in length.

Users on Threads won’t have to start from scratch in building a platform. The platform requires users to login using their existing Instagram credentials and the app will then populate with their existing account details, like name, username, photo, and followers as well as existing verification. Just like Instagram, you can see posts from those you follow as well as recommended posts. The app also carries over any blocked users or terms and uses the same community guidelines as Instagram.

This cross platform-functionality is what gives Threads the edge over other Twitter competitors as users jump ship from the social media platform as its ongoing policy changes continue to confuse.

Within four hours of the launch today, Threads amassed over 5 million users. The launch came as no surprise with leaks from the company last week confirming the release and rumours of development as early as January.

“Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas,” wrote Instagram on its blog post announcing the launch.

Meta has big plans for the platform also stating, “soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today. Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.”

These ambitious plans may be foiled by government regulation as in the EU, the DMA regulations prevent this type of interoperability. Threads will not be launching in the EU at this time due to the high amount of data sharing the app requires.

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