ISLAMABAD
\nMore than 10 million people have signed up to Threads, Meta\u2019s rival to Twitter, within the first few hours of its launch, the company\u2019s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday.
\nThe app went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 2300GMT on Wednesday, and will run with no ads for now, but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns.
\nThreads is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of the world\u2019s biggest social media platforms, despite its struggles.
\n\u201c10 million sign ups in seven hours,\u201d Zuckerberg wrote on his official Threads account Thursday.
\nAccounts were already active for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Hugh Jackman, as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist.
\nZuckerberg also offered a shot across the bow at Musk \u2014 the pair are known to be bitter rivals, and have offered to wrestle it out a cage fight.
\nIn his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarities between Threads.
\nOn Threads, he wrote: \u201cIt\u2019ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn\u2019t nailed it. Hopefully we will.\u201d
\nTwitter has said it has more than 200 million daily users.
\nThreads was introduced as a clear spin-off of Instagram, which offers a built-in audience of more than two billion users, sparing the new platform the challenge of starting from scratch.
\nInstagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build \u201can open and friendly platform for conversations\u201d.
\n\u201cThe best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind,\u201d he said.
\nZuckerberg is widely understood to be taking advantage of Musk\u2019s chaotic ownership of Twitter to push out the new product, which Meta hopes will become the go-to platform for celebrities, companies and politicians.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s as simple as that: if an Instagram user with a large number of followers such as Kardashian or a Bieber or a Messi begins posting on Threads regularly, a new platform could quickly thrive,\u201d strategic financial analyst Brian Wieser said on Substack.
\nAnalyst Jasmine Engberg from Insider Intelligence said Threads only needs one out of four Instagram monthly users \u201cto make it as big as Twitter\u201d.
\n\u201cTwitter users are desperate for an alternative, and Musk has given Zuckerberg an opening,\u201d she added.
\nUnder Musk, Twitter has seen content moderation reduced to a minimum with glitches and rash decisions scaring away celebrities and major advertisers.
\nHe has angered Twitter\u2019s most devoted aficionados by declaring that access to its TweetDeck product \u2014 which allows users to view a fast flow of tweets at once \u2014 would be for paying customers only.
\nMeta has its legion of critics too, especially in Europe, which could slow the growth of Threads.
\nThe company has been criticised for its handling of personal data, the essential ingredient for targeted ads that help it rake in billions of dollars in profits.
\nMosseri said he regretted that the launch was delayed in the European Union, but had Meta waited for regulatory clarity from Brussels, Threads would have been \u201cmany, many, many, months away\u201d.
\n\u201cI was worried that our window would close, because timing is important,\u201d he told the tech news site Platformer.
\nAccording to a source close to the matter, Meta was wary of a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which sets strict rules for the world\u2019s \u201cgatekeeper\u201d internet companies.
\nOne rule restricts platforms from moving user data between products, as would potentially be the case between Threads and Instagram.
\nMeta was caught doing just that after it bought WhatsApp, and European regulators will be on high alert to ensure it does not do so illegally with Threads.
\nGlobally, the Threads hashtag on Twitter has garnered over a million tweets, with many users jokingly suggesting people will return to Musk\u2019s platform.
\n\u201c10 mins into threads app. Me coming back to Twitter,\u201d one user wrote, sharing a video of a man sprinting.
\nOthers expressed privacy concerns.
\n\u201cMeta loves to collect private information and I don\u2019t trust the way it treats private information,\u201d a Japanese user tweeted. \u201cI also have the impression that this is a company hated by EU, so I\u2019m reluctant.\u201d
\nBut some said they would permanently move to Threads.
\nOne Threads user wrote: \u201cNow I truly can say goodbye to Twitter forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD More than 10 million people have signed up to Threads, Meta\u2019s rival to Twitter, within the first few hours of its launch, the company\u2019s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday. The app went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 2300GMT on Wednesday, and will run with no ads for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-341889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n