Threads is a Twitter alternative from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
It’s not out yet, but soon will be and could represent the most serious rival to Twitter. Forget Mastodon and Bluesky, Threads could be the new text-led social network we should all jump to next.
Here’s everything we know about Threads so far.
When is Threads being released?
Meta’s Twitter alternative is expected to launch this week. It is called Threads, and a preview page for the iPhone app has already appeared on Apple’s App Store.
The app is expected to launch in only a couple of days, on Thursday, July 6, according to its App Store listing.
How do I get the Threads app?
You can’t yet download the Treads app. But if you own an iPhone, you can pre-order it using this link from your phone. This means it will download once the app is released.
The app also briefly appeared on Google Play at the weekend, too, although was not actually available to download. However, this is good news, suggesting the initial launch may span both Android and iOS platforms.
If your search for “Threads” on your phone’s app store at the time of writing, you’ll find only an unrelated app of the same name. This has no connection to Meta’s Threads.
How will the Threads app work?
Threads’s App Store description says it’s an Instagram app. This means you’ll use the same login as you do for your Instagram account, if you have one.
One of the app’s screenshots depicts the app asking if you want to add your Instagram followers to your Threads account. This is an easy way for the service to get you started without truly beginning from scratch.
These preview images also suggest the experience will be much like using Twitter, hopefully with less of a chaotic energy.
Posts appear to be centred around text and images, a departure from the now video-focused Instagram. And you will be able to limit who can reply to your posts to people you follow, or merely those mentioned in a post.
Will Threads be free to use?
Threads will be a free download, but will likely offer the same Meta Verified service that launched for Facebook and Instagram in the UK in May. This costs £9.99 a month when bought on a website, or £11.99 directly through the respective iOS and Android apps, thanks to the cut Apple and Google take on app payments.
This verifies your identity and promises “proactive account monitoring” for spoof accounts claiming to be you.
It sounds a lot like a pure Meta equivalent to Twitter’s contentious Blue sub, but it has caused much less of a fuss on Instagram.
When did Meta start making Threads?
Meta confirmed it was working on a Twitter alternative to The Verge last month, and said coding for the app began in January.
“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,” said Meta chief product officer Chris Cox.
He claims Oprah Winfrey and the Dalai Lama were among the leading figures who have expressed an interest in the platform.
Is Threads bad for privacy?
Some concerns have been raised about the privacy of the upcoming Threads app. However, its App Store listing suggests it will have a privacy policy comparable to that of Instagram.
Meta will publish a “supplementary” privacy policy and terms of use documents for Threads, but these were not live at the time of publishing. We will give them a read when available and update this article with any additional information you should know about.
Is Twitter at risk from Threads?
The volatility of Twitter has led many users to look for a new platform that could replace it. At the weekend, owner Elon Musk announced limits on the number of tweets people were allowed to view each day.
For non-Twitter Blue subscribers, the limit was 600 posts a day, and only 500 for new users. Limits of 6,000 viewed tweets for paid users were introduced too, which Musk says is to combat “data scraping and system manipulation”.
Tweets might be scraped to teach an AI bot how to tweet more persuasively or realistically, for example.
These restrictions were loosened shortly after they were announced, to 1,000 tweets for unverified accounts and 10,000 for verified ones.
The official desktop Twitter manager app Tweetdeck is also set to change. It will be accessible to only verified users from around the beginning of August.
Making Twitter an increasingly hostile environment is a sure way to give Meta’s Thread launch a leg up.
