Meta to launch Twitter competitor this week

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is set to launch a “text-based conversation app” expected to rival Twitter later this week.

A website for the app, which is called Threads, shows a countdown to Thursday morning and links to the new platform’s Apple App Store page.

“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” according to the App Store page. 

“Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite 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 continues.

Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox reportedly called the app “our response to Twitter” at a companywide meeting last month, according to The Verge.

“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,” Cox said at the time, The Verge reported.

Twitter has undergone a chaotic eight months since billionaire Elon Musk acquired the social media company last fall.

Musk has replaced the platform’s traditional verification scheme with a paid subscription service, eliminated certain content moderation rules, suspended the accounts of several journalists and reinstated the accounts of previously banned individuals, including former President Trump.

Most recently, on Saturday, Musk implemented temporary limits on how many tweets users could view per day. While verified accounts were restricted to viewing 6,000 posts a day, unverified accounts were limited to 600 posts and new unverified accounts were further limited to 300 posts.