Twitter threatens to sue Meta, accuses of poaching employees and copying its platform with Threads app

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Meta may face legal action from Twitter over its new text app Threads, which Twitter says is a "copycat" of its platform. Twitter claims Meta hired former Twitter employees who used Twitter's trade secrets and intellectual property to develop Threads. Meta denies the allegations and says none of the Threads engineers are ex-Twitter staff. Threads is a text-based companion to Instagram that resembles Twitter and other text-based social platforms. It launched on Wednesday and attracted 30 million users in one day, posing a serious challenge to Twitter's dominance. Twitter's owner Elon Musk accused Meta of "cheating" and vowed to protect his intellectual property rights.

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Threads hits 30 million signups, 95 million threads

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People seem to be taking to Meta's new text-based app Threads. CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared that the app hit over 30 million sign-ups as of Thursday morning. And The Verge reports that internal data shows users have posted over 95 million threads and dropped around 190 million likes. All this happened less than 24 hours since the Twitter competitor launched.

The app isn't without faults or flaws, though. For now, you can't access features like direct messaging, a reverse-chronological following feed (you have a messy home feed for now), planned integration with decentralized ActivityPub protocol, and more. There's also the issue of not being able to delete your Threads account without deleting your Instagram one. However, you can deactivate the former without deactivating the latter. For now, they're tied together.

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Meta's Twitter rival might be coming on July 6

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Meta's Twitter rival Threads is reportedly coming to iOS on July 6. The app, which was first reported in May, is a text-based conversation platform that integrates with Instagram. A listing was spotted on the iOS app store with that estimated release date. 

Based on the screenshots posted in the listing, users can keep their Instagram handle and follow the same accounts they follow on the photo-sharing app. They can also choose who can see their posts, and interact with others by hearting, sending, and sharing messages. 

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Instagram's new Threads messaging app can send automatic updates to your close friends

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If you keep a Close Friends list on Instagram and are keen on trying a new messaging app, you might want to check out what Instagram is cooking up. The company is testing a new Threads app, which is designed to be a standalone companion messaging app for Instagram. It's a way to contact your Close Friends list and share things like location, speed, and battery life. If those features seem to be familiar to you, it's Facebook's latest attempt to copy many of Snapchat's most popular features. The app will let you send automatic updates to your entire list of friends. It also gives you access to Instagram's full suite of creative tools, which include text, photo, and video messaging.

Facebook abandoned in May its previous attempt to make a standalone messaging app for Instagram. But it looks like the company wants to give it another shot, especially since its CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that the future of its company will revolve around private messaging.

Source: The Verge