Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has announced the launch of Threads, a new microblogging app that aims to challenge Twitter’s dominance in the social media space.
Threads allows users to post short messages, photos, videos and live streams to their followers, similar to Twitter. However, Threads also offers some unique features, such as voice messages, group chats, end-to-end encryption and more control over who can see and reply to posts.
The app was launched on Wednesday and quickly became the number-one free app on the iOS App Store, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reporting 30 million user sign-ups in the first day.
The launch of Threads comes amid a growing rivalry between Meta and Twitter, which are both competing for users’ attention and advertising dollars. Twitter owner Elon Musk recently acquired Twitter for $44 billion and has introduced some controversial changes to the platform, such as limiting the number of tweets users can read per day and banning political ads.
Meta has also faced criticism for its handling of misinformation, hate speech and privacy issues on its platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The company rebranded itself as Meta in October, signaling its focus on building the metaverse, a virtual reality version of the internet.
Twitter has not commented on Threads’ launch, but has reportedly threatened Meta with a lawsuit over alleged trade secret theft through the hiring of former Twitter employees. Meta has denied the allegations and said that none of the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee.
