Everything you need to know about Threads, Meta’s new Twitter rival platform

Here’s what you need to know about the most talked-about new social media platform of the moment.

What is Threads?

Threads is “Instagram’s text-based conversation app”, the app listing reads, explaining further that “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow.” (so far it’s Twitter, tbh…).

It continues: “Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favourite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”

It allows users to share individual posts of up to 500 characters (take that, Twitter’s 280 character limit), together with links, photos or videos up to five minutes in length (on Twitter, the video length limit is currently two minutes and 20 seconds). As with the current versions of Instagram and Twitter, the Threads timeline is algorithm-based, rather than chronological – rewarding highly-engaged posts by bringing them to the top of a timeline.

Threads will follow the same “Community Guidelines” as Instagram, for instance restricting spam and nudity.

How do I get started on Threads?

Those already using Instagram can carry over their username and followers to Threads – which may well give this technology the edge on other Twitter lookalike platforms such as Mastodon and BlueSky, which users have been slowly moving to follow Musk’s takeover.

That means, if you’re already on Instagram you can simply download the app from Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and then sign in with your usual Instagram account details. If you’re not yet on Instagram, you’ll have to create an Instagram account in order use Threads (as it’s powered by the former).

One thing to mention is that, at time of writing, it doesn’t seem possible to delete your Threads account without deleting your Instagram account too.

How is Threads different to Twitter?

It would be impossible not to compare and contrast Threads with its lookalike Twitter. As mentioned earlier, Threads allows for lengthier content formats than Twitter, both in its 500-character limit and five minute video length limits.