Meta announces 5 million Threads downloads in first hours
New York, Jul 6 (EFE).- Technology company Meta’s President Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that in the first four hours after its launch there have been 5 million downloads of his new social network Theads, with which he wants to compete with Twitter.
“We just surpassed 5 million registrations in the first four hours,” Zuckerberg announced in a message on the new social network, whose downloads began with problems Wednesday after the technology giant brought its launch up one day.
The launch of the new product from Meta, a giant that also owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, occurred at 23:00 GMT on Wednesday with two major drawbacks: the lack of access from the countries of the European Union, apparently due to difficulties with EU data protection laws, and on Android phones.
The launch of Threads, a platform in development for some time, seems to have been accelerated by Zuckerberg’s team in response to the restrictions announced by Twitter on the number of daily message reads and open content.
Twitter users have been increasingly irritated by the lurch that the social network has been giving since billionaire Elon Musk bought the company last year, having imposed different formulas to try to make it profitable, such as charging for verified accounts, and limiting their daily use to combat bots.
Since the launch of Threads was announced this week, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Musk himself independently spoke of alleged privacy problems with the new platform, which they said will collect all kinds of sensitive user data, including identity, health condition and physical shape, finances and contacts.
The application has an interface very similar to that of Twitter, but simpler: messages are grouped into two tabs, the “threads” tab (emulating Tweets) and “replies,” and messages can receive hearts, comments, and forwards, as well as be shared.
According to Meta, entertainment giants and the press such as Billboard, HBO, US public radio NPR or Netflix already had an account on Threads minutes after the launch of the new social network, available in 100 countries.
Among celebrities who have joined the new social network, according to Meta, are artist Shakira, chef Gordon Ramsay and Formula 1 driver Lando Norris. EFE
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