Instagram’s Threads: everything you need to know about the new Twitter competitor

In an interview about Threads with The Verge, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri explains why the platform wants to take on Twitter. “Obviously, Twitter pioneered the space,” Mosseri says. “And there are a lot of good offerings out there for public conversations. But just given everything that was going on, we thought there was an opportunity to build something that was open and something that was good for the community that was already using Instagram.”

Rumors about the new Meta-owned platform were swirling for months, with a March report from Platformer revealing the company was “exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates.” In June, Alex Heath leaked the details of a companywide meeting where the app was shown off and shared the first glimpse at Threads.

Threads is “Instagram’s text-based conversation app” where “communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow.” The app is closely tied to Instagram, meaning you’ll get to use the same username across both apps as well as quickly follow all of the accounts you’ve been following on Instagram.