Meta's Twitter rival Threads sees 10 million sign ups in 7 hours

Threads, the new platform developed by Meta, saw 10 million sign ups within just seven hours of its launch today. "10 million sign ups in seven hours," Facebook parent's CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his official Threads account Thursday.

Threads is being viewed as the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk's microblogging platform Twitter, which has been undergoing many changes after Musk bought the platform last year. The new platform allows users to post up to 500 characters, and has many features similar to Twitter.

When asked on Threads whether the app will be "bigger than Twitter", Zuckerberg said, "It'll 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't nailed it. Hopefully we will," he said.

Earlier, Zuckerberg introduced Threads as an open and friendly public space for conversation.

It may be noted that Instagram users who sign up for Threads automatically have a badge affixed to their Instagram profile, but can opt to hide it. They are also given options to choose different privacy settings for each app.

Meta is taking aim at a time when Twitter is definitely on the defensive.

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, but its value has since plummeted amid deep staffing cuts and content moderation controversies that have alienated both users and advertisers. Its latest move involved limiting the number of tweets users can read per day.

Also Read: Instagram’s Twitter competitor Threads now available on Apple's App Store and Android's Play Store in India