The app is presented as a text-based version of the photo-sharing app Meta Instagram, which, according to Meta, offers “a new space for real-time updates and public conversation”. Thread means thread in Norwegian.

The app was launched after midnight on Thursday night in the UK and a hundred other countries, including the US, on Apple’s and Google’s Android app stores. But not in the EU which has strict rules for data protection.

Four hours after the app was activated, 5 million people had signed up as users, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is in close personal competition with Musk.

– Let’s do it. Welcome to Threads, wrote Zuckerberg in his first message on the new service.

Users are offered microblogging in a similar way to Twitter, suggesting that Meta will challenge Twitter directly after a series of unpopular changes to Twitter since Musk took over.

Unpopular Twitter Actions

In recent days, Musk has introduced temporary limits on how many Twitter messages users can read per day, and late Monday the company announced that the Tweetdeck feature would be put behind a paywall.

The free feature allows users to organize the accounts and lists they follow into multiple lines in the same browser window, making it easier to monitor multiple accounts at once.

Among other things, as a result of the restrictions, the company has struggled with advertiser exits after Musk took over.

Instagram username

In Threads there are buttons to like, share, or quote a “thread”, and it will show how many likes a message got. Each message is limited to 500 characters, Twitter is up to 280 characters long, and links, images and videos of up to five minutes can be inserted.

Two billion Instagram users can log in with their existing usernames and follow the same accounts in the new app, while new users must create an Instagram account.

Concern for user safety

However, there are concerns about user protection because Threads collects large amounts of personal information, including health information, financial contacts, search history and location data.

Meta has informed the Data Protection Commission in Ireland, where Meta has its EU headquarters, that Meta has no plans to launch an offering in the EU yet, and the app will be unavailable in countries such as Germany and France as of Thursday.