Threads by Instagram – live: Meta’s new Twitter rival app gets 10 million sign-ups in first hours of launch

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg posted that Threads has seen over 5 million sign-ups since its launch.

“Just passed 5 million sign-ups in the first four hours,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Earlier in the day, the app had seen over 2 million signups within the first 2 hours of its launch.

The app’s link to Instagram allows users to create Threads accounts with their existing Instagram usernames, as well as connect with those they already follow on the image-based app.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg posted on Threads that the new app has passed over 2 million sign ups since its launch.

“Threads just passed 2 million sign ups in the first two hours,” Mr Zuckerberg posted.

The Twitter rival app is available in over 100 countries and allows users to post up to 500 characters.

Mr Zuckerberg said keeping the platform “friendly... will ultimately be the key to its success”.

Asked whether the app will be “bigger than Twitter,” he said “It’ll take some time,” adding that “there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it.”

Threads allows users to post text 500 characters long and also include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.

“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,” Meta noted in a blog post.

Users can start on Threads using their Instagram account to log in.

“Your Instagram username and verification will carry over, with the option to customize your profile specifically for Threads,” the company noted.

“You can choose to follow the same accounts you do on Instagram, and find more people who care about the same things you do,” it said.

Here’s everything you need to know about the app’s launch.

While the Twitter competitor app is downloadable in US and UK app stores, users in EU countries like Germany cannot use it.

Threads would access Instagram user data, including search history, location data, and other private information, according to TechCrunch.

Twitter co-founder and former chief Jack Dorsey tweeted his concerns about Thread’s data requirements.

“All your Threads belong to us,” Mr Dorsey tweeted along with a snapshot of the new app’s data needs mentioned in its App Store page. Twitter’s current owner Elon Musk acknowledged the tweet by replying “Yeah.”

Threads may also be accessing users’ other private data, including financial and health information, exact location, browser history, contacts, and search history.

Meta is reportedly figuring out ways to adjust to the EU’s data protection laws.

Among the early people posting to Threads is Eurovision, which kicked off with a post reading “Good evening Europe”. But, as the top comment points out, most of Europe can’t read that post – the app is not available in the European Union because of data privacy concerns.

Instagram has been encouraging its early adopters to post early, so that the news feed is full when people first enter it. And that seems to have worked: the feed already has posts from people including the UFC, many of which went up hours before the app actually went live.

Meta has made Threads as easy to get started with as possible. You log in with your existing account, and the design is a simple mash-up of Instagram and Twitter.

Here’s everything you need to know to get started.

Threads has now been announced. You can find out everything you need to know here.

There has, perhaps, been more interest in leaving Twitter than going to an alternative, like Threads. If you want to get away from Elon Musk’s social network and delete your account while you do, here’s what you need to do.

Numerous other apps have attempted to unseat Twitter, especially since Elon Musk took over and the site became both more controversial and less reliable. But most of them have struggled.

Often, that has been at least partly the result of friction in signing up. Mastodon involves a slightly complex system of different servers that result in long display names; Bluesky is still in a limited release that means people need a signup code.

Threads – backed by the mighty infrastructure of Meta – seems to be ready to take all signups at launch. (Presumably, people might not even need to actually sign up at all, if they have an Instagram account.) That might be one of the ways it really challenges Twitter, by reducing the time and effort required to start using it.

We’ll find out soon.