Meta Launches Twitter Rival Threads: What You Need to Know

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter Inc. last year, the microblogging site has faced technical glitches, content moderation problems and controversy over its new owner’s declared “free speech absolutism.” Enter rival billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta Platforms Inc. has seized the moment to launch a rival service, Threads, with the scale, financial firepower and pre-existing user base to potentially threaten Twitter’s dominance.

“text-based conversation app” that’s widely seen as an alternative to Twitter. Like Twitter, the app will allow users to write and share real-time text updates among groups of followers, allowing them to like, reply, share and send direct messages. It even borrows the name from its rival: Threads are another word for a series of connected tweets from one account. Teaser images released on Apple Inc.’s App Store suggest Threads will be connected to Meta’s photo and video sharing network Instagram and will make it easy for people to find and track the same accounts that they follow there. The App Store page says Threads will be made available on Thursday July 6.

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