Instagram’s answer to Twitter, the Threads app, has attracted 30 million sign-ups by Thursday morning, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, as he argued that the new platform could transform the social media industry.

“Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build out the app,” Zuckerberg said in a post on the app.

The launch of Meta’s free app comes as Twitter, which has been dramatically transformed by Elon Musk since he purchased it last year, introduced “emergency” measures to limit users’ experience on the platform.

Within hours of the Threads launch, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, Jack Black, Kylie Minogue, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gwen Stefani, Noah Beck and Shakira were among the artists and media personalities to join.

In its first hours, the app appeared to function similarly to Twitter.

Users shared posts — or “threads” — with inspirational memes, late-night thoughts and sarcastic quips.

Although Threads developers are eager to distinguish it from Twitter, the apps share many functional similarities. Like Twitter, Threads is focused on text posts, limiting each to 500 characters. Users can also tag one another using the @ symbol, as well as reply to and “repost” a thread. Unlike Twitter, however, the current version of Threads does not have a direct message function.

An early advantage for Threads is the app’s links to Instagram, giving it an easy-to-reach, built-in potential user base. Threads users can log in with one click using their Instagram credentials and are immediately given the option to carry over their existing username and follow some or all of the same accounts.

The sign-up figures shared by Zuckerberg overnight would mean Threads was attracting more than 1 million new users per hour, although The Washington Post could not immediately authenticate how many of the sign-ups were made by real people.

The app’s quick growth — building off Instagram’s established success — suggests that Threads has quickly positioned itself as a top contender against Twitter. Other would-be rivals to Musk’s platform, such as Mastodon and Bluesky, have yet to grow beyond single-digit millions of users — although a key test for Threads will be its ability to retain the loyalty and attention of its curious new users in the coming days weeks.

Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over its new, text-based app called Threads, according to a letter obtained by Semafor.

In a Wednesday letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.

Since launching Threads Wednesday night, Meta’s new app has collected tens of millions of sign ups. The app, which was created by the company’s Instagram team, arrives at a time when many are looking for Twitter alternatives to escape Elon Musk’s raucous oversight of the platform since acquiring it last year for $44 billion.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded to the report of Spiro’s letter on Threads Thursday afternoon, writing, “no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”

— Associated Press