By John Ikani
Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms Inc., has unveiled Threads, an app designed to directly rival Twitter, posing a serious threat to Elon Musk’s struggling social media platform.
With Threads, users can post text and links, as well as reply to and repost messages from others.
Users have the option to migrate their existing follower lists and account names from Instagram, Meta’s popular photo and video-sharing app with over 2 billion users, including major brands, celebrities, and creators.
In a post on Threads, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, expressed the need for a public conversations app with over a billion users, emphasizing Twitter’s failure to deliver on this opportunity.
He wrote, “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully, we will.”
Connor Hayes, Vice President of Product at Instagram, revealed that many influential users of the platform had requested a text-based app as an alternative to existing options.
Meta has a history of emulating successful features from rival platforms. Reels, Meta’s feature for short viral videos, was inspired by TikTok, while Stories, disappearing posts, was influenced by Snapchat.
Meta’s previous apps indirectly competed with Twitter for user attention by attracting news publishers, politicians, and high-profile individuals.
However, the launch of Threads marks Meta’s first direct attempt to replicate Twitter’s interface.
The timing of Threads seems opportune for Meta. Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, the company has undergone significant layoffs, relaxed content moderation policies, and faced technical challenges, negatively impacting users and advertisers.
Financially, Twitter is also struggling, with advertising revenue declining by 50% according to Musk in March. To address these issues, Musk appointed Linda Yaccarino, a former NBC Universal executive, as the new CEO in an effort to improve relationships with brands.
At the time of Threads’ launch, Twitter continues to impose limitations on the number of tweets users can view per day, a temporary measure to combat data scrapers and bots, according to Musk.
The restrictions have prompted Twitter users to seek alternative platforms.
However, previous challengers like Bluesky and Mastodon have not built substantial networks capable of rivalling Twitter’s reach and impact.
In addition, many new alternative networks are still developing systems to manage harmful or inappropriate content effectively.
Threads benefit from Instagram’s established infrastructure, inheriting the same content rules and controls for muting and blocking harassing accounts.
Public figures with verified Instagram accounts can maintain their blue badges on Threads.
In contrast, Twitter recently made verification a paid-only feature.
Hayes emphasized that Threads prioritizes user control and safety from the start, offering an experience where individuals have more control over their interactions.
Furthermore, Threads is built on the ActivityPub social-networking protocol, the same protocol used by Mastodon and other decentralized social media apps.
The compatibility enables users to engage with a broader community beyond Instagram as Threads grows its user base.
Although no timeline has been provided for this update, it represents Meta’s first app that will be interoperable with competing products.
For now, Threads will launch without advertisements. The primary focus is to generate excitement among users and build momentum for the product, according to Hayes.
