by Thinus Ferreira
Instagram, which belongs to Meta that owns Facebook, on Thursday morning launched Threads, the latest global social media app that aims to gobble up people tired of the toxic stew of Elon Musk's Twitter.
Threads launched on Thursday as a downloadable app on iOS and Android in more than 100 countries, including South Africa.
Find TVwithThinus on Threads and follow at @tvwiththinus
Threads, which can easily be signed up for with an existing Instagram account, is primed as a safer, better haven for social media users looking to interact with others online but without some of the recent limitations imposed by Musk on Twitter, its long-running technical problems and caustic mix of online hate.
"Whatever it is you're interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favourite creators and others who love the same things - or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world," Threads says.
Threads shares a lot of the features of Twitter and early on Thursday morning, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg "threading" under just "zuck", noted that Threads has passed over five million users who had signed up within just a few hours. He noted that the aim of Threads is to keep the new social media platform friendly and that it "will ultimately be the key to its success".
In a statement, Meta says "Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos. 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".
"Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks."
"Compatible apps will set their own community standards and content moderation policies. We believe this decentralised approach, similar to the protocols governing emails and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms."
Instagram posts can be shared to Threads, and posts on Threads can be shared to Instagram, with Threads posts which can run to 500 characters or letters compared to Twitter's 280 and can include photos, links and videos of up to five minutes in duration.
