Zuckerberg introduces his 'Twitter killer': Threads has arrived

The battle between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, pending their promised cage match, took its next step with the release of the "Twitter killer" developed by Meta. The app is called Threads, a new social network that mimics Twitter and is aiming to overtake it. A few hours after its launch, the creator of Facebook announced that 10 million users had already registered. One who will not be there is the South African entrepreneur, who announced that he deleted his Instagram account.

"The false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram"

Zuckerberg was quick to premiere the new platform with a post expressing his vision for it, "I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will." In successive posts, Meta's CEO noted that Threads achieved 5 million sign-ups within four hours of its launch. A little later, he stated that the figure had increased to 10 million.

The alleged victim of the new product does not seem very concerned. In a tweet Thursday, Musk showed an internal post in which he assured that he had unsubscribed from Instagram because "it is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram."

Threads is closely linked to Instagram

Threads is closely linked to Instagram, and was created to enhance the latter, although it will have its own independent app to avoid saturation. To open an account on the new social network, users must have an Instagram profile. In addition, users can export their contacts and the people you follow. Verified users on Instagram will keep their badge in Threads and users will be able to choose whether their threads are public or private.

In an interview with The New York Times, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said, "The idea is to hopefully build an open, friendly space for communities." To this end, Meta has created an app that, at first glance, might appear to be a carbon copy of Twitter. Users can post text in a scrollable feed, to which people who follow them and whom they follow can reply. Photos or videos can also be posted on the application.

One of the big differences, however, is that it does not include the possibility of sending direct messages. Meta's executives pointed out that this may not be permanent, as they assure that they will listen to the comments and suggestions of users to implement improvements and popular proposals.