National —
Meta on Wednesday officially launched what many describe as a potential Twitter killer – “Threads,” an application intended to provide a space for real-time conversations through text-based messages.
Facebook or Meta has tried to compete with Twitter over the years, and this time the giant tech firm has taken probably the biggest swipe at its rival yet.
Linked to Instagram, Threads bear resemblance to Twitter in several ways in terms of features. Users can see messages from those they follow, and they can choose to follow the same group of people as their Instagram account.
Furthermore, users can customize their Threads account to be public while maintaining privacy on their linked Instagram account. In terms of text input, Threads surpasses the 280-character limit of the Twitter app for non-subscribing users by allowing up to 500 characters.
Users can also seamlessly share posts between Threads and Instagram and attach links, images, and videos with a maximum duration of 5 minutes.
The release of Threads comes shortly after Twitter’s largest shareholder Elon Musk announced to impose a “view limit” policy on the app.
With this restriction, Twitter users will be able to see only a limited number of tweets per day – 1,000 tweets for unverified users, 10,000 tweets for paid subscribers, and 500 tweets for new users. However, this plan is not yet set in stone after criticism from the user base and subject to change.
On Thursday morning, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on his verified Threads account that his new app has already received 30 million sign-ups.
Threads is available for download in 100 countries including Thailand, but it is not yet available in the EU due to regulatory concerns.