Meta, the owner of Facebook, is set to launch a new app called “Threads,” designed to rival Twitter’s platform. The app was made available for pre-order on mobile app stores for both iPhone and Android operating systems on Monday.
Presented as “Threads, an Instagram app,” this new program is expected to be fully accessible in the coming days and is described on Apple’s app store as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app.”
According to the app’s description on the store, Threads aims to be a place where communities can engage in discussions about various topics, from current interests to upcoming trends.
The launch of Threads follows a period of uncertainty at Twitter after Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, took over the company in October. Under his leadership, the company underwent significant restructuring, leading to layoffs, and some features were made exclusive behind a subscription paywall.
In mid-March, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced its plans to develop a new social network that could potentially compete with Twitter.
Threads promises to offer users the ability to directly connect with their favorite creators and like-minded individuals, or even build a dedicated following of their own to share their ideas, opinions, and creativity with the world, as stated in its app store description.
The group behind Threads also shared a vision of creating a decentralized and independent social network that facilitates real-time sharing of written messages, according to a statement sent to AFP.
Twitter recently faced criticism when Elon Musk announced that the platform would restrict the number of tweets that non-subscription users could read per day.
The majority of users, who don’t pay for subscriptions, were limited to only 1,000 tweets a day. This move was primarily aimed at limiting third-party access to the social network’s data, particularly companies that use the data to train artificial intelligence models.