Headline Roundup • July 6th, 2023
Meta Launches Threads in Bid to Compete With Twitter
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, launched "Threads" on Wednesday, a new social media app designed to compete with Twitter.
The Details: The app is available to users in more than 100 countries, and allows people to sign up from their Instagram accounts. It reportedly surpassed 10 million signups in the first 7 hours.
Key Quotes: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg celebrated the platform’s launch with a post on the platform, saying: "Just passed 5 million sign ups in the first four hours…" Twitter owner Elon Musk said on his own platform that "It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram."
For Context: Musk and Zuckerberg have recently traded barbs, with the two men even seeming to agree to fight each other in a cage match. Meanwhile, some Twitter users have complained about the platform's recent moves to limit how many posts people can view.
How the Media Covered It: Sources across the spectrum covered the news prominently. Many framed it as the opening salvo of a new battle between Big Tech platforms.
Featured Coverage of this Story
DAVIDE BONALDO/SSOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET/GETTY IMAGES
Let the battle begin.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms on Wednesday launched Threads, a stand-alone microblogging app that takes direct aim at Twitter as user unrest on that platform has grown since Elon Musk took the company over in October.
Threads, which began allowing some posts earlier this week from people including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and journalists and celebrities, rolled out to users around the world. The app will use some of Instagram’s infrastructure and allow people to use their Instagram login, a step that is likely to help it gain a following quickly, analysts have said. Zuckerberg said...
Meta
While Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are still preparing for a possible cage match, starting today, their two companies are officially battling.
Meta has released Threads, its standalone Twitter competitor that is based on Instagram’s account system. According to the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, Twitter’s “volatility” and “unpredictability” under Musk provided the opening to compete. In an interview, Mosseri says that Threads is designed for “public conversations,” a direct reference to how Twitter execs have described the purpose of the service over the years.
“Obviously, Twitter pioneered the space,” according to...
Paul Hanna/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Facebook parent Meta Platforms launch its new social media site "Threads" on Wednesday, and it swiftly took off with more than 5 million sign-ups within just a few hours of its launch, according to its CEO.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg celebrated the platform’s launch, which came Wednesday evening in the U.S. with a new thread on the platform, saying: "Just passed 5 million sign ups in the first four hours…" Hours earlier, Zuckerberg said the app had gained 2 million sign-ups in the first two hours from its release.
Zuckerberg has embraced the idea...
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