Here is Threads, Zuckerberg’s response to Elon Musk’s Twitter

After years of rumors, the answer of finally arrives on the market Half (company that controls Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) a Twitter. Is called Threads and is available today in the US and UK digital stores. In the announcement video launched by Mark Zuckerberg on its social channels the goal of the new social network is expressed, not even too indirectly: to offer an alternative to the chaos and anarchy of Twitter.

The keyword of the short video is “friendly”. The CEO of Meta has in fact presented Threads as an “open and welcoming public space for conversation”. The use of the term ‘welcoming’ is a clear message to all those disappointed by the Twitter revolution implemented by Elon Musk following the acquisition. The idea of ​​”free speech” by the South African entrepreneur seems to have in fact dissatisfied a good portion of users who now see the blue bird’s social network as a place without rules and in total confusion. Confusion that seems not only to concern the rules of the platform but also the internal management of the company given i continuous technical problems that afflict the social network and that they brought Musk to propose, and then withdraw, a limitation on the number of daily contents that can be viewed. Zuckerberg he therefore decided to take advantage of the moment and launch one new platform ready to host Twitter exiles and, from the first data released, it seems promising. I am indeed 5 million users already subscribed to Threads in the first 4 hours of launch day. Clearly the success or failure of the idea will only be assessed after months, or years, and will be measured on the frequency of use of the social network, but an already high number of users still denotes a certain public attention to possible new alternatives.

Also for structure and interface Threads seems to want to be a familiar place for Twitter users. In fact, it will allow you to write posts using a maximum of 500 characters, unlike the 280 of Twitter (unless you subscribe to the Twitter Blue service), with possible additions of photos, videos and links, and you can interact through likes, comments and shares. The launch of this new platform will be an important test bed for Half after the (at least momentary) flop of his project of “metaverse” on which the company seemed to bet a lot. In addition to the financial side, launching another unsuccessful product would further undermine investor confidence in the company.

Meanwhile to be able to launch Threads on the European market as well Half will also have to solve the disputes with the European Union about the use of data. In fact, since Threads is totally interconnected with Instagram, it would not comply with European regulations on the protection of sensitive information. Already in the past, in fact, the Data Protection Commission had prevented Meta from cross-referencing data from its platforms, for example to launch advertisements on WhatsApp that were based on information retrieved from Facebook. While waiting for these situations to be resolved, the United States and the United Kingdom will be the two benchmark countries for understanding Threads’ chances of success.