Things to know about Twitter’s rival app, Threads

More than 10 million people have signed up to Threads, Meta’s rival to Twitter, within the first few hours of its launch, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday.

The app went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 2300 GMT on Wednesday and will run with no ads for now, but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns.

Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of the world’s biggest social media platforms, despite its struggles.

Here are some things to know about the new app:

• Threads allows users to post up to 500 characters and has many features similar to Twitter.

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• “Deactivating your Threads profile will not deactivate your Instagram account”.

• It will be available to anyone aged 12 and over in 31 different languages, including English, Traditional Chinese, Russian and Spanish.

• The App Store’s description reads: ‘Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favourite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.’

• It’s easy to get started with Threads: simply use your Instagram account to log in. Your Instagram username and verification will carry over, with the option to customize your profile specifically for Threads.

• The application aims at taking safety seriously and will enforce Instagram’s Community Guidelines on content and interactions in the app.

See Zuckerberg’s remark below:

 

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)