Meta today launched Threads, an app designed as a direct rival to Twitter, ramping up the rivalry between billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. On Threads, people can post text and links and reply to or repost messages from others.
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 social media’s most iconic companies, despite its struggles.
In the first response since the launch of Zuckerberg’s new offering, Musk seemed to suggest that Threads is a replica of Twitter.
Musk posted a laughing face emoticon in reply to a tweet that said Threads has been made using a keyword with only the keys for Copy and Paste features.
Meta’s new app is the latest chapter in Musk and Zuckerberg rivalry – two billionaires who have even offered to meet each other in a fighting cage to wrestle it out.
Earlier today, after the launch of Threads, Zuckerberg tweeted a photo of identical Spider-Men facing off, his first tweet in over a decade.
Threads is capitalising on a series of missteps at Twitter. Since Musk acquired the company for $44 billion in October, it’s cut thousands of employees, loosened content moderation policies, and put users and advertisers through a spate of technical challenges. In the latest controversial policy change, Twitter limited the number of tweets users can view daily — a measure Musk called “temporary” in order to fend off data scrapers and bots.
Within hours, Threads has already gained over five million users including celebrities like Shakira and Jack Black.
