Meta’s Twitter-destroying platform Threads uses your Instagram login to start your social graph. That’s both its biggest benefit and its biggest problem.
How to Use Instagram Threads + Why You Should Care
Threads is essentially Meta’s Twitter clone. Built by the Instagram team, it lets you publish microblog posts of up to 500 words, share photos and videos, comment, repost, like, and follow anyone using their Instagram handle, and it will be compatible with Mastodon. It could be the Twitter replacement everyone is looking for, but Threads is already violating user privacy. And thanks to stricter privacy laws in the European Union (EU), Threads isn’t even available in Europe yet.
“If Meta ultimately creates a product that replaces Twitter, on top of controlling Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, there is certainly a greater risk of antitrust scrutiny, perhaps even on this side of the Atlantic,” Ben Michael, an attorney at Michael and Associates, told Lifewire via email.
Ever since Twitter’s new owner shut it down, people have been looking for an alternative. Mastodon is great, but signing up isn’t easy or convenient for many users. Bluesky is still invite-only, and nothing else has really caught on. Enter Threads, a Twitter clone you’ve probably signed up for that comes with an instant social graph.
