- Threads is a new app, built by the Instagram team, to take on Twitter.
- You log in using your Instagram account and posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.
- Threads is linked to your Instagram account.
Mark Zuckerberg has finally launched the initial version of Threads, built by the Instagram team for sharing with text, promising to be a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.
“Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas,” said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook. “Just like on Instagram, with Threads you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests – including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond. And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls.”
Via Instagram
To use Threads: simply use your Instagram account to log in. Your Instagram username and verification will carry over, with the option to customize your profile specifically for Threads.
Everyone who is under 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private profile when they join Threads. You can choose to follow the same accounts you do on Instagram, and find more people who care about the same things you do. The core accessibility features available on Instagram today, such as screen reader support and AI-generated image descriptions, are also enabled on Threads.
A user’s feed on Threads includes threads posted by people you follow, and recommended content from new creators you haven’t discovered yet. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. You can easily share a Threads post to your Instagram story, or share your post as a link on any other platform you choose.
Tune Out the Noise
Threads aims to be a positive place for productive conversations unlike Twitter which has been known for toxicity. Users can control who can mention them or reply to them within Threads. Like on Instagram, users can add hidden words to filter out replies to their threads that contain specific words. Users can unfollow, block, restrict or report a profile on Threads by tapping the three-dot menu, and any accounts they’ve blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads.
In short, Threads is running on Instagram’s Community Guidelines on content and interactions in the app.
Compatible with Interoperable Networks
Soon, Threads will be compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today. Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.
With ActivityHub, Threads will give users more control over their audience on Threads – our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service. Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks. If you have a public profile on Threads, this means your posts would be accessible from other apps, allowing you to reach new people with no added effort. If you have a private profile, you’d be able to approve users on Threads who want to follow you and interact with your content, similar to your experience on Instagram.
The benefits of open social networking protocols go well beyond the ways people can follow each other. Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation. Each compatible app can set its own community standards and content moderation policies, meaning people have the freedom to choose spaces that align with their values. We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms.
Threads is Meta’s first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol – a fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services to help people find their community, no matter what app they use. Threads has been rolled out in more than 100 countries for iOS and Android.