Countdown to the birth of a new social network. Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, has announced that this Thursday the Threads application will be available, with which the group founded by Mark Zuckerberg wants to compete with Elon Musk’s Twitter. The launch has prompted a disagreement between the two moguls, who half-jokingly, half-seriously, challenged each other to a cage-fight in Las Vegas.
The application, dubbed Threads, has appeared on the Apple App Store, noting that it will be available “soon” with an estimated date of “May 6th”. July 2023″. The application is something like Instagram’s Twitter. It is a news social network based on the use of group photos and videos.
The presentation defines it as “Instagram’s text-based conversational app.” “Threads is the space where communities come together for diverse discussions, from the topics that interest you today to those that will trend in the future. Whatever your interest, you can follow your favorite creators and connect directly with them and other like-minded people, or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world. Text accompanying the application.
By default, threads (which means threads in English and refers to those opened on social networks) offer users the opportunity to follow the same accounts that the user follows on Instagram if he is already a user of this network. This allows the network to start with a significant critical mass. The sample screenshots available show a social network similar to Twitter and many others, where you can comment, like, retweet, or export a message for sharing.
Initially, the app will be available in around thirty languages including English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Ukrainian, Turkish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Indonesian, Hungarian and Greek.
The Privacy Information notes that the Application may collect health data, financial information, contact information, content, browsing history, usage, purchases, location, search history, identifiers, and private information, among other things. It lead to Twitter founder Jack Dorseyto write “All your threads are ours,” which Elon Musk agreed to. However, the user information that Twitter collects is not all that different.
Threads will seek to capitalize on the frustration of millions of Twitter users at the tyrannical and chaotic management Elon Musk has had of the little bird’s social network since he bought it for $44,000 million. From modifying the algorithm to make its messages more visible, to distributing hardcore porn, to increasing the presence of hate speech and complying with authoritarian governments’ censorship policies, many of Musk’s decisions have angered users of the social network and turned off numerous advertisers .
Added to this are bugs in the platform, measures such as the daily limit of readable messages, the management of verification marks and the obligation to pay to access some of the content. Twitter has also introduced a requirement for users to be verified to use the TweetDeck online control panel, apparently aimed at additional revenue. Most of these changes are unpopular with users.
However, the appeal of Twitter is undeniable, as public and private figures, organizations, businesses and all types of entities join the conversation, even if Twitter often violates copyright and intellectual property rights on videos, photos and other content.
Should users perceive threads as a viable alternative, the blow to Musk could be huge. Meta comes at a good time with its social network as Twitter users are increasingly frustrated with Musk’s changes and are looking for a viable alternative, Matt Navarra, a social network consultant, told AP. Threads offers the “opportunity to get into a platform that can give them a lot of the things they want Twitter to continue to be, which it’s not anymore,” he said.
The dispute in Las Vegas between Zuckerberg and Musk has no date. The one on social media continues this Thursday.
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