Meta’s latest social media platform, Threads, is gaining quite the traction. The app racked up to 100 million users in just five days after its launch, which is unprecedented for any social media app ever. Dubbed as the “Twitter killer”, Threads is steadily gaining the momentum it needs to be a new mainstay on the roster of today’s most popular social media platforms. 

Similar to Twitter, Threads is a micro-blogging platform that allows users to share real-time thoughts and ideas in the form of a thread, similar to tweets on Twitter. 

Living in times post-Jack Dorsey, and with Elon Musk progressively making Twitter worse by the day, many users were desperate for a Twitter replacement. And Meta tapped into that market, and appears to have succeeded with Threads. But what are users saying about its performance so far?

There were a handful of complaints from users within one week of launch, from smartphone batteries draining too fast and lacking a “more robust search function”, to a sketchy deal of only being able to delete your Threads account by also deleting your associated Instagram account. There were indeed a lot of bugs yet to be addressed by the new platform. 

Musk was quick to react to the new competition, having Twitter limit search results for tweets containing links to Threads. He also threatened a lawsuit claiming that “Threads was copying Twitter while stealing employees and trading secrets”, to which Meta has clarified that no former Twitter employee was on the platform’s team. 

Amidst all the complaints and controversy, it is very clear that an invisible string ties Threads to Twitter—time will tell whether this will be cut, or neatly tied to a knot. 

Image by Ralp Ebot.