Facebook's parent company is launching its attempt at creating a "Twitter killer" as soon as Wednesday as Elon Musk struggles to keep Twitter functional more than nine months after his initial purchase.
Instagram is launching its "Threads" feature, a separate app that will allow users to microblog like Twitter. The platform will be a "text-based conversation app" that uses a community-based approach similar to Mastodon or Bluesky but relies on a user's Instagram account to connect.
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The app was initially expected to launch on Thursday, but Meta shifted its release to Wednesday at 7 p.m. EDT. The new social platform will join a growing number of Twitter alternatives and arrives at the same time that Musk is struggling to find Twitter reliable sources of revenue and keep the website operational.
Threads are where "communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what'll be trending tomorrow," according to Meta. It's been dubbed by some social media users as a "Twitter killer" that will lure Musk's customers to a rival platform owned by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Threads will work based on Instagram but integrate with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol. This will allow users to transfer accounts to other ActivityPub-powered platforms like Mastodon.
Musk ran into technical troubles on Saturday when he announced that the company was limiting how many tweets users could view daily. He's cut more than 80% of the company's staff in the last nine months to save funds and begin paying off the company's debt.
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He has also made a variety of complicated content moderation decisions. These include bans on the term "cis," restricting links to potential competitors, and allowing thousands of accounts back on the platform that used to promote conspiracy theories. These decisions have contributed to advertisers abandoning Twitter. The company saw its ad sales drop 59% year over year in June.
Musk and Zuckerberg have faced off in recent weeks, with the two billionaires even jokingly agreeing to a cage match earlier this year, only for Musk's mother, Maye Musk, to cancel it.