Meta is trying to capitalise on Twitter’s volatility, especially after Elon Musk’s takeover.

Meta has officially released its newest Threads app, a text-based social media platform designed to rival Elon Musk’s Twitter.

Threads, which works with Instagram’s account system, was launched following following “volatility” and “unpredictability” on Twitter, which has faced a range of changes since being acquired by Musk, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri told the Verge.

The layout of Threads is very familiar to Twitter users, with features like “retweet” and “quote tweet” are rebranded to “repost” and “quote.”

While the main feed primarily shows text and the occasional photo posts, other pages include a search, activity, profile, and compose tabs matching Twitter’s interface.

There are also counters for the number of likes, replies, and posts. However, the biggest differentiator currently seems that, unlike twitter, Threads doesn’t use hashtags. It also doesn’t have a feature that allows for searching a specific phrase yet.

Verification/subscription doesn’t unlock any functionality. Additionally, posts can be 500 characters long, up from the 280-character limit for non-subscriber Twitter users. The application is devoid of ads as it is in its early stages.

“The vision for Threads is to create an option and friendly public space for conversation,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post following the launch. “We hope to take what Instagram does best and create a new experience around text, ideas, and discussing what’s on your mind.”

Threads are also fully integrated with Instagram allowing one to share easily. Eventually, Threads, Instagram and Facebook will be merged into ActivityPub, the decentralised social media protocol that also powers Mastodon.

For now, in just seven hours from release, 10 million app downloads have been recorded. Even still, this is seen as a risky endeavor competing with a juggernaut like Twitter that has been around for a long time.

Mosseri is aware of the challenge and feels like the timing of the onboarding process will be in Meta’s favour.

“We have made the signup process easier by letting you auto-populate your account info and follow list from your Instagram,” he said. “Still, Twitter has got a lot of history; it has a strong and vibrant community on it. The network effects are powerful.”

Currently, the feed is populated with celebrities and accounts with limited connection/ interest to the signed-in user.

Twitter has been a dominant actor in the text-sharing social media industry. But the recent backlash against Musk, as he attempted to limit the number of tweets users, can see was a breaking point for Meta to launch this competitor.

Twitter in turmoil

The debate around Twitter started long before Musk took charge, however issues have been exacerbated since the Tesla CEO bought the company last year.

Musk made a 43 billion dollar purchase of Twitter last April, voicing concerns about the company’s censorship and lack of free speech as Twitter expanded its blocking of accounts that were deemed against its terms and conditions.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter was marred by internal disputes and the firing of thousands of employees. Within a week, there was a huge exodus from advertisers, following the disbandment of a large portion of the trust and safety team.

Since then, Twitter has lost half of its top 100 advertisers and recorded a steep decline in revenue. It has also rolled back its verification programme, instead looking to get a subscription-based platform.

Criticisms of mismanagement were plenty and the bad optics continued as Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match last week after his announcement launching Threads as a competitor.

Is Meta too big?

Like many Meta-run products, Threads offers the unsettling experience of integrating almost too well into existing products. Making an account gives you the option to follow your existing circle from Instagram. Your followers will likely receive a notification that you’ve made an account and posted, encouraging them to do the same.

“It would be great if it gets really, really big,” said Mosseri citing plans to match Instagram’s one billion users. “But I’m actually more interested in if it becomes culturally relevant than if it gets hundreds of millions of users.”

But then there are the longstanding privacy issues.

Watchdogs have raised a number of concerns about Threads as the tech giant seeks to pull even more users into its universe. Threads are able to collect a wide range of personal information, including health, financial, contacts, browsing and search history, location data, purchases and “sensitive info,” according to its data privacy disclosure on the App Store.

Because of those issues, Threads is not yet available in the European Union, which has strict data privacy rules. The company is working on rolling the app out to more countries, but cites regulatory uncertainty for its decision to hold off on a European launch.

Meta has emphasised measures on the new app to keep users safe, including enforcing Instagram’s community guidelines and providing tools to control who can mention or reply to users.