What is Threads?

NEW YORK (AP):

Threads, a text-based app built by Meta to rival Twitter, is live.

The app, billed as the text version of Meta’s photo-sharing platform Instagram, became available last Wednesday night to users in more than 100 countries, including Jamaica. Despite some early glitches, 30 million people had signed up before noon on Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Threads.

New arrivals to the platform include The Gleaner, THE STAR and other media outlets as well as global celebrities such as Oprah and pop star Shakira. Corporate accounts from Taco Bell, Netflix, Spotify and others have also been created.

Threads, which Meta says provides “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations”, arrives at a time when many are looking for Twitter alternatives to escape Elon Musk’s raucous oversight of the platform since acquiring it last year for US$44 billion. But Meta’s new app has also raised data privacy concerns, and is notably unavailable in the European Union.

Here’s what you need to know about Threads.

HOW CAN I USE THREADS?

Threads is now available for download in Apple and Google Android app stores for people in more than 100 countries.

Threads was built by the Instagram team, so Instagram users can log into Threads through their Instagram account. Your user name and verification status will carry over, according to the platform, but you will also have options to customise other areas of your profile, including whether or not you want to follow the same people that you do on Instagram.

Because Threads and Instagram are so closely linked, it’s also important to be cautious of account deletion. According to Threads’ supplemental privacy policy, you can deactivate your profile at any time, “but your Threads profile can only be deleted by deleting your Instagram account”.

CAN I USE THREADS IF I DON’T HAVE AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT?

For now, only Instagram users can create Threads accounts. If you want to access Threads, you will have to sign up for Instagram first.

While this may receive some pushback, VP and research director at Forrester Mike Proulx said making Threads an extension of Instagram was a smart move on Meta’s part.

“It’s piquing [user] curiosity,” Proulx said, noting that Instagram users are getting alerts about their followers joining Threads – causing more and more people to sign up. “That’s one of the reasons why Threads got over 10 million people to sign up in just a seven- hour period” after launching.

HOW IS THREADS SIMILAR TO TWITTER?

Threads’ microblogging experience is very similar to Twitter. Users can repost, reply to or quote a thread, for example, and can see the number of likes and replies that a post has received. ‘Threads’ can run up to 500 characters – compared with Twitter’s 280-character threshold – and can include links, photos and videos up to five minutes long.

In early replies on Threads, Zuckerberg said making the app “a friendly place” will be a key to success – adding that that was “one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently”.

IS TWITTER SEEKING LEGAL ACTION AGAINST META?

According to a letter obtained by Semafor last Thursday, Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over Threads. In the letter, which was addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and dated Wednesday, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded to the report of Spiro’s letter on Threads Thursday afternoon, writing, “no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee”.

Musk hadn’t directly tweeted about the possibility of legal action up to late on Friday, but he has replied to several snarky takes on the Threads launch. The Twitter owner responded to one tweet suggesting that Meta’s app was built largely through the use of the copy and paste function, with a laughing emoji.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino had also not publicly commented on Wednesday’s letter up to Friday evening, but seemingly appeared to address Threads’ launch in a Thursday tweet, writing that “the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”

HASN’T THIS BEEN DONE BEFORE?

The similarities of Meta’s new text-based app suggests that the company is working to directly challenge Twitter. The tumultuous ownership has resulted in a series of unpopular changes that have turned off users and advertisers, some of whom are searching for Twitter alternatives.

Threads is the latest Twitter rival to emerge in this landscape following Bluesky, Mastodon and Spill.

HOW DOES THREADS MODERATE CONTENT?

According to Meta, Threads will use the same safety measures deployed on Instagram, which includes enforcing Instagram’s community guidelines and providing tools to control who can mention or reply to users.

Content warnings on search queries ranging from conspiracy theory groups to misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations also appear to be similar to Instagram.

WHAT ARE THE PRIVACY CONCERNS?

Threads could collect a wide range of personal information, including health, financial, contacts, browsing and search history, location data, purchases and “sensitive info”, according to its data privacy disclosure on the App Store.

Threads isn’t available in the European Union, which has strict data privacy rules.

Meta informed Ireland’s Data Privacy Commission, Meta’s main privacy regulator for the EU, that it has no plans yet to launch Threads in the 27-nation bloc. The company said it is working on rolling the app out to more countries, but pointed to regulatory uncertainty for its decision to hold off on a European launch.

WHAT’S THE FUTURE FOR THREADS?

Success for Threads is far from guaranteed. Industry watchers point to Meta’s track record of starting standalone apps that were later shut down, including an Instagram messaging app – also called ‘Threads’ – that shut down less than two years after its 2019 launch, Proulx notes.

Still, the new app could be a significant headache for Musk and Twitter as combining Twitter-style features with Instagram’s look and feel could drive user engagement.

Threads is in its early days, however, and much depends on user feedback.

“The real test is not if we can build up a lot of hype, but if you all find enough value in the app to keep using it over time,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote Thursday in a Threads post. He also acknowledged, as many users have already done, that there are “tons of basics” missing, including hashtags and direct messaging between users. “Full disclosure, it’ll take time.”