Threads vs. Twitter: these are the main differences

As we mentioned a week ago, Meta has taken advantage of the complicated moment Twitter is going through with its latest controversial decisions to launch its own microblogging app. We tell you all the details of this new platform.

Threads, Instagram’s text-based messaging app, has reached a major user milestone: it already has 100 million sign-ups in just five days. OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot had the distinction of being one of the fastest growing consumer products. But keeping users on the platform is the real challenge for this new platform.

Twitter is considering legal action against Meta for its Threads app. “Competition is OK, cheating is not,” said Twitter owner Elon Musk. Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing his company of “systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property” to create Threads. In a letter, Meta denied Twitter’s claims that its former employees were involved in the creation of Threads.

Threads vs. Twitter

Posts can be up to 500 characters, as opposed to 280 on Twitter.

Reading limits: Threads has no restrictions in place so far, unlike Twitter, which has implemented tweet viewing limits.

Multimedia content: On Threads, users can include links, photos and videos up to 5 minutes long, with no limits for unverified accounts. On Twitter, unverified accounts can only post videos up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds.

Threads does not display a character counter.

On Threads, users can leverage their existing Instagram contact base and share content on other social networks simultaneously, something Twitter does not offer.

Meta has announced plans to make Threads compatible with the open social networking protocol called ActivityPub, which would allow users to operate with other applications that use this protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress.

On Twitter, users have access to trending and popular topics on the homepage, while Threads does not offer this function.

As for the search engine, Threads is limited to account search, not keyword search like Twitter.

Threads does not have a separate private messaging function, but relies on Instagram for this functionality.

Twitter displays banner ads, unlike Threads which does not currently display them.

Threads does not have a web or desktop version, which means it can only be accessed via the mobile app.

Unlike Twitter, Threads has more restrictive safety policies regarding the types of videos or images allowed, which may be considered inappropriate, so no content including nudity or pornography is allowed.

If you delete your Threads account, you automatically lose your Instagram account.

Still not familiar with Threads, Meta’s new microblogging app?