By Editor-July 6th, 2023.
Threads, which launches worldwide today, though not yet in Europe, is a brand new microblogging platform from Meta, the monstrous Mark Zuckerberg company that owns WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
The app has been designed and built by the Instagram team and is described as a platform for sharing text updates and joining public conversations.
Interestingly, Threads uses your existing Instagram network of friends and followers with you. That means you will have to use your Instagram account to sign up for Threads, or first open an instagram account if you don’t have one already.
Meta notes that users who are younger than 18 will receive a default private profile.
Threads is a Twitter clone, even if Meta claims that the app is modelled after how Instagram changed the way we share visual content on social media.
Truth be told, Threads works exactly like Twitter. The platform primarily revolves around text conversation, and your posts – called “threads” are limited to 500 characters each, which is more than Twitter’s 280-character threshold.
On Meta’s platform, you mention other people in threads by using the @ symbol in front of their username, and can reply to someone else’s posts.
Just like you do it on Twitter, you can also quote or retweet someone else’s threads. At launch, what’s missing is the ability to directly message or DM someone. However, unlike Twitter, there’s no way to edit threads once you have posted them.
Instagram Threads, the upcoming Twitter competitor from Meta, will not be launched in the European Union due to privacy concerns, according to Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC).
This development was reported by the Irish Independent, which said the watchdog has been in contact with the social media giant about the new product and confirmed the release won’t extend to the E.U. “at this point.”
Naturally, the launch of the new application was announed by Mark Zuckerberg on Twitter in his first tweet since 2012, together with an image depicting two identical Spiderman drawings. So which one is the real thing? Time will tell.
— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) July 6, 2023
Souces: News agencies, India Times, TechCrunch.
