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Tens of millions of people have quickly signed up to Meta’s new app, Threads, as it aims to compete with Twitter. It’s a sign that users are looking for an alternative to the social media platform that’s undergone a series of unpopular changes since Elon Musk bought it.
Meta said that 30 million people had registered for Threads on its first day. There’s plenty of excitement about the opportunity to make a fresh start on a new social media app.
There also have been glitches, annoyance about the lack of a chronological feed and gripes about missing features. That raises the question of whether it could pose a meaningful challenge to Twitter.
Threads is billed as a text-based version of Meta’s photo-sharing app Instagram that the company says provides “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.”
Instagram users can log in with their existing usernames and follow the same accounts on the new app, giving Threads users a ready-made audience and an edge over other Twitter challengers like Bluesky and Mastodon.
Meta’s new offering also has raised data privacy concerns. The company has held off on rolling it out in the European Union, citing regulatory uncertainty.
The 27-nation EU has strict data privacy rules and is set to start enforcing a new set of digital rules aimed at clamping down on Big Tech companies and limiting what they can do with users’ personal information.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.