Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s newly launched social media platform, is set to hit 100m followers in its first week.
By contrast it took ChatGPT two months to get 100m users, according to data from Quiver Quantitative.
The platform, a rival to Twitter, was launched in 100 countries last week but is currently inaccessible in the European Union because of strict data protection regulation in the bloc.
Threads is currently a mobile only app and accounts on the platform are linked to Instagram accounts. Instagram has 1 billion users and Zuckerberg has hinted at his ambitions to have a similar reach with Threads.
On his Threads account, he said: “I’ve always thought there would be a town square app with 1 billion+ people. It’s wild that after a few days it seems possible to people that Threads has a shot. Lots of hard work ahead though.”
Threads is marketing itself as a friendlier social media space than its rival, Twitter.
On his Threads account, Zuckerberg said: “The vision for Threads is to create an open and friendly public space for conversation. We hope to take what Instagram does best and create a new experience around text, ideas, and discussing what’s on your mind.”
He added: “The goal is to keep it friendly as it expands. I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success. That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently.”
Elon Musk has not responded to the emergence of a rival with equilibrium. He has threatened to sue Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Threads, for launching what he called a “copycat” platform and poaching Twitter staff.
And he took to Twitter to denounce his rival: “Zuck is a cuck,” he tweeted, adding: “I propose a literal dick measuring contest.”
Since it launched in July 2006 Twitter has acquired a reputation for hosting vitriolic content.
Its reputation as the wild west of social media platforms was intensified in the wake of its acquisition by Musk in October 2022 when the company made a string of lay-offs, including chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer, Ned Segal, chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde and general counsel, Sean Edgett.
Since the Tesla CEO completed the $44 billion deal to takeover Twitter he has brought in changes to the platform. In April it junked the blue tick account verification system and
This month it made users log in to view tweets and set a rate limit to view and comment on posts of 6000 for paying users and 600 for free subscribers, which Musk said was to prevent data scraping on the platform. But the changes proved to be temporary.
