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Meta has officially launched its surprisingly popular Twitter alternative, Threads—shocking even Mark Zuckerberg as signups hit 30 million within the first 24 hours. Though a separate app, Threads is built as a convenient extension of Instagram, requiring an Instagram account to join and allowing users to port their entire Instagram following over in one click. That has clearly made Threads appealing to a huge chunk of Instagram users.
"We didn't expect tens of millions of people to sign up in one day, but supporting that is a champagne problem," Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said in a cheery update on Thursday.
With its well-timed launch coming just after Twitter announced unpopular rate limits on tweets, Threads has quickly surpassed ChatGPT as the fastest-growing consumer app, TechCrunch reported. But as signups explode, Threads is also experiencing immediate backlash from critics who have complained about how Threads was designed and about the app's seemingly ample privacy issues.
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