Mark Zuckerberg flicked the switch early and now we have millions of users already posting on Meta’s answer to Twitter, Threads.
It was due to launch late tonight Australian time but Zuckerberg’s team saw no point delaying the start given the service was ready to go and many people had already downloaded the app.
Threads is an Instagram product, built by the Instagram team. You will need an Instagram account to get started on the new micro blogging platform.
“Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas,” Instagram said on a blog post.
“Just like on Instagram, with Threads you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests – including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond.
“And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls.”
It’s being rolled out to more than 100 countries but if you’re in the EU, you’ll have to wait.
Sign up is incredibly simple. Once you download the app from (iOS or Google Play) you just connect to Instagram. It will auto populate your bio and contacts if authorised. And that is it.
Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. You can easily share a Threads post to your Instagram story, or share your post as a link on any other platform you choose.
As a long-time Twitter user who is disappointed with the management of the platform, Threads feels good. At least, it does now.
You can control who can mention you or reply to you within Threads. Like on Instagram, you can add hidden words to filter out replies to your threads that contain specific words. You can unfollow, block, restrict or report a profile on Threads by tapping the three-dot menu, and any accounts you’ve blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads.
Everyone who is under 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private profile when they join Threads.
At a time when Twitter is restricting access, Threads is opening up to the wider social universe.
In the blog spot Instagram said, “Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web.
“This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today.
“Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.”
Meta has no immediate plans to monetise the platform.