Meta’s newly launched text-based app “Threads”, which went live on Wednesday, has recorded an explosion of new users, 70 million sign-ups on Friday, over 95 million posts and 190 million likes. “Way beyond our expectations,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He hopes the new platform will grow to over one billion members
Threads, the Twitter lookalike, will definitely give Elon Musk a run for his money as the microblogging platform has been riddled with problems ever since the Tesla boss bought it for $44Billion. But Adam Mosseri, Instagram head, says Meta’s goal isn’t to replace Twitter. Through Threads, Meta is creating a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter. It’s also for communities on Twitter and other platforms that are interested in a less threatening place for conservations. “Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads – they have on Instagram as well to some extent, but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals.”
Rumor mills are rumbling that Meta, which is always money-hungry, will leverage Twitter’s setbacks like technical glitches, content moderation and recent policy changes. Threads will seamlessly integrate into its sister app Instagram’s massive user base and take it forward. But it cannot be denied that Threads it’s a “copy” of Twitter, the uncanny resemblance of its user interface design, the same heart, comment and share buttons.
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Trouble is already brewing for Meta as Elon Musk has threatened the social media giant with a lawsuit. Lawyer Alex Spiro accused Meta of “unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property. The lawsuit alleges Meta of hiring former Twitter employees who had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.
However, the legal catfight is not stopping users from downloading Threads as they want a platform free of complexities and unwarranted policies. Jasmine Enberg, a principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, believes Meta only needs 1 in 4 Instagram users to use Threads monthly for it to be as big as Elon Musk’s Twitter. She said Threads has plenty of room to grow as it hasn’t been launched in Europe due to ongoing regulatory complexity. Enberg said avid Twitter loyalists aren’t likely to deflect to Twitter and Meta will need to keep Threads interesting to maintain the momentum once the newness wears off.
