Global Courant
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has officially launched Threads, a new “conversation” app that appears to be Twitter’s long-awaited counterpart.
The app surpassed “2 million logins in the first two hours,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Threads page.
Zuckerberg and Elon Musk managed to avert a cage fight last month, but the companies they oversee, Meta and Twitter, respectively, are now in direct competition.
Zuckerberg’s latest platform, which launched Wednesday, a day earlier than expected, offers a place “where communities come together to discuss everything from topics you care about today to what will be trending tomorrow,” the app describes. store said.
“Whatever you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who enjoy the same things, or you can build a loyal following yourself to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world, added the app store description.
Users, who must be at least 12 years old, will be given the option to log into Threads through an existing Instagram account. Users under the age of 16 (or under the age of 18 in certain countries) will have their account set to a private profile by default when they join Threads.
On the platform, user posts can be up to 500 characters long, including links, photos, and videos of up to 5 minutes.
a privacy policy stated in the app store that Threads can collect data from users related to a whole range of categories: health and fitness, financial information, contact information, search history and purchases, among others.
In contrast, Twitter collects information from users while using the platform, when users provide the information directly, and when Twitter receives data from third parties, the privacy policy say.
Responding sarcastically to news about the app, Musk criticized Meta in a tweet“Thank goodness they are run so sensibly,” he said. The comment referenced language allegedly used by Meta executives in a mocking description of Musk’s performance on Twitter.
Meta and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the app’s launch.
Meta’s new app arrives days after Twitter endured its latest troubles under Musk, experiencing an outage over the weekend affecting thousands of users in multiple countries, according to the online tracking site. down detector.
The platform, in turn, imposed “temporary limits” on the number of posts users could view in a single day, Musk said said on Saturday.
Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles Exhibition Center in Paris, June 16, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters, FILE
Musk, who runs Tesla and SpaceX, stepped down as CEO last month but retained a prominent role in the company as executive chairman and chief technology officer.
In recent months, Twitter seemed to focus on Meta’s services. In May, Twitter added encrypted messaging and announced plans to offer voice calling — both key features of Meta-owned WhatsApp.
The battle between the two companies escalated last month into apparent animosity between Musk and Zuckerberg.
In response to a post mentioning a Twitter meta counterpart, Musk said in a tweet that he was willing to fight Zuckerberg in a “cage match.”
On Instagram, Zuckerberg posted a screenshot of Musk’s tweet and a caption: “Send Me Location.”
The battle between the rival billionaires did not materialize. On Monday, however, Musk trained with Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Georges St-Pierre, according to one tweet of St. Pierre with a photo of Musk.
The launch of Threads also drew criticism from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who took aim at the app’s data collection policy. “All your threads,” Dorsey said. “Is ours.”
Dorsey previously criticized Musk’s leadership on Twitter, saying in April that “everything went south” on the platform after Musk’s acquisition. CNBC reported.
Earlier this year, Dorsey launched its own alternative app: Bluesky Social. The platform remains by invite only while it is being tested. The company has not given a timeline for when it plans to take the site public.
