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The text-based Twitter competitor Threads was officially launched on Wednesday by Facebook behemoth Meta, but its rollout in Europe has been postponed due to regulatory issues.
The largest threat to Elon Musk-owned Twitter thus far is Threads, which, despite its enormous challenges, has seen a number of prospective rivals emerge but has not yet succeeded in displacing one of social media’s most recognisable firms.
At 2300 GMT, the app became live on Apple and Android app stores with profiles for celebrities like Shakira and Jack Black as well as media companies like The Hollywood Reporter, Vice, and Netflix already operational.
Do this now. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, wrote in his inaugural post on the new site, “Welcome to Threads,” as Meta’s chief executive.
The app was launched as a blatant spin-off of Instagram, giving it access to an audience of more than two billion people without having to face the task of building an audience from scratch.
In order to promote the new tool, which the corporation hopes will become the preferred means of communication for celebrities, businesses, and politicians, Zuckerberg is widely believed to be taking advantage of Musk’s tumultuous control of Twitter.
Strategic financial analyst Brian Wieser stated on Substack, “It’s that simple: if an Instagram user with a large following, like a Kardashian, a Bieber, or a Messi, begins posting on Threads regularly, a new platform could quickly thrive.”
To become “as big as Twitter,” according to Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Engberg, Threads just needs one out of every four monthly Instagram users.
Users of Twitter are in desperate need of an alternative, and Musk has provided Zuckerberg with a chance, she continued.
Musk and Zuckerberg are well known to be fierce adversaries and have even volunteered to square off in a combat arena.
This occurred following a Meta executive allegedly telling staff that Threads would be similar to Twitter but “sanely run.”
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri stated that Threads was created to create “an open and friendly platform for conversations” in an apparent attempt to distance himself from Twitter’s poisonous reputation.
Being polite is the best action you can take if you want that as well, he advised.
With problems and hasty choices damaging the site’s reputation and frightening away famous people and significant sponsors, content moderation on Twitter has been drastically lowered under Musk.
Advertising executive Linda Yaccarino was hired by Musk to calm the ship, but he has not spared her from his whims.
The Tesla billionaire announced last week that he was restricting access to Twitter as a “temporary” precaution against corporations “scraping” the site to train their AI systems.
Then, Musk infuriated Twitter’s most ardent devotees by announcing that access to its TweetDeck tool, which enables users to view a rapid stream of tweets at once, would only be available to paying clients.
‘Fediverse’ is about to launch.
Despite Instagram’s enormous user base, Threads owner Meta also has a legion of detractors, many of whom are based in Europe. As a result, the growth of the website may be slowed.
The business formerly known as Facebook is criticised mostly for how it handles user data, which serves as the foundation for the targeted advertising that generates billions of dollars in revenue for the corporation every quarter.
The debut of Threads in the European Union, where Meta will be subject to a new regulation known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which establishes tough guidelines for the biggest online corporations in the world, will be delayed due to regulatory concerns, said a source with direct knowledge of the situation.
One restriction prohibits platforms from sharing user information across other products, as may happen if Threads and Instagram were to merge.
European regulators will be on high watch to make sure that the firm doesn’t do so with Threads after Meta was exposed for doing just that after it purchased the messaging platform WhatsApp.
Making Threads interoperable with competitor social networks like Mastodon is a further original idea that has been put on hold for the time being but has not been given up.
The app informed users that “soon, you’ll be able to follow and interact with people on other fediverse platforms.”
The so-called fediverse would permit communication between various platforms of all shapes and sizes.
