Meta, formerly Facebook, has been working on a Twitter counterpart called Threads for some time now, and its debut appears to be soon. A listing for the app has emerged in the iOS App Store, indicating a July 6th launch date. Previous sources anticipated a late June release, but it appears the app will emerge at a time when Twitter users are more receptive to trying out alternatives.
This correlates with recent Twitter modifications, in which the network imposed a restriction on the amount of tweets that unverified accounts may view every day. Elon Musk said in a post that verified (paying) accounts may view up to 6,000 posts each day, while unverified/nonpaying users can only access 600 posts. Twitter put this precaution in place to fight data scraping and system manipulation. This change, however, has limited non-paying users’ access to their feeds, as 600 postings may quickly be reached by regular users.
Threads, which Meta describes as “Instagram’s text-based discussion app,” looks to incorporate Instagram features. According to the images in the app listing, users may keep their Instagram identities and follow the same profiles they do on the photo-sharing network. Users may bring their current followers and circles to the new app, giving it an advantage over competing Twitter alternatives. Users will also be able to customise the privacy settings for their posts, making them accessible to everyone, only to the profiles they follow, or only to the mentioned accounts. Users may also like, email, and share other people’s postings.
Earlier rumours suggested that Meta’s Twitter rival will be a decentralised service compatible with Mastodon, however it’s unclear whether this functionality would be included in the initial launch. Further information will be released in the coming days.