What We Know About Facebook's Upcoming Rival To Twitter
One of Meta’s top executives showed employees a preview of the company’s upcoming Twitter competitor
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Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, is reportedly preparing to unveil what is termed as the biggest competitor to Twitter which promises to transform how interactions happen online every day.
The Verge reported that one of Meta’s top executives showed employees a preview of the company’s upcoming Twitter competitor during a companywide meeting on Thursday, June 8.
Viral Tea looks at the new platform under development, titled “Project 92,” which could be called "Threads" when it is publicly launched, and what Kenyans can expect from the new platform.
The leaked screenshot reveals what Meta's new social media app to rival Twitter will look like. /THE VERGE
Project 92/Threads Features
The new standalone app will harness the power of Instagram and integrate seamlessly with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol, in what is viewed as Meta's plan to change the digital space radically.
That will theoretically allow users of the new app to take their accounts and followers to other apps that support ActivityPub, including Mastodon.
Leveraging Instagram's robust account system, the new app sets the stage for a seamless onboarding experience, automatically populating user information and ensuring a smooth transition.
Moreover, users will be able to log in using their existing Instagram credentials, which means that it will be trivially easy to join in with Mastodon instances around the world.
Chris Cox, Meta's Chief Product Officer, termed Project 92 as Meta's response to Twitter which will use Instagram’s account system to automatically populate a user’s information.
“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,” Cox said, throwing direct shade at Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter, to cheers from the audience.
He added that the company’s goal for the app was “safety, ease of use, reliability” and making sure that creators have a “stable place to build and grow their audiences.”
Cox further disclosed that the company had already reached out to celebrities who expressed commitment to using the app. They include DJ Slime, with Meta being in discussions with other big names, including Oprah Winfrey and the Dalai Lama.
He added that “coding began” for the app in January and that Meta will be making the app available “as soon as we can.”
With Facebook boasting over 3 billion users and WhatsApp and Instagram over 2 billion users each, Meta's development of a Twitter competitor could open up a new opportunity for social media disruption. Threads aim to redefine social media interaction, ushering in a fresh approach to connectivity and content sharing.
Since Elon Musk's takeover, Twitter has been losing its power of credibility despite executives assuring that they were working on bolstering it into the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication.
One of Musk's most controversial moves was to eliminate the legacy verified checkmark (blue tick) and start charging a monthly subscription to accounts which worked hard to get it for free, allowing almost any Twitter user to feature the coveted tick on their profiles while paying for it at the same time.
During the mass purge of legacy verified checkmarks on Thursday, April 20, many accounts belonging to celebrities, politicians, journalists and media organizations lost their blue ticks, exposing them to the proliferation of fake accounts masquerading under them before Musk reversed the directive for accounts with over 1 million followers.
In May, Musk appointed former NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino as Twitter's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) after he announced plans to replace himself in the role through a Twitter poll in which the majority of users voted for his ouster.
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