The social media platform launched by Meta in July 2023 was Threads.
Meta officially launched Threads on July 5, 2023, as a text-focused social networking service closely connected to Instagram. Users could sign in with an Instagram account, follow many of the same people, and share short text updates, links, images, and videos. Meta presented the service as a competitor to Twitter, now known as X, during a period of major change in that platform’s ownership and policies.
Threads grew unusually quickly. It reportedly passed 30 million sign-ups within its first day and exceeded 100 million users within five days, although early daily engagement later fell sharply. The app initially launched in more than 100 countries, while its European Union release was delayed until December 2023 because of regulatory and data-policy concerns.
The name is sometimes confused with Bluesky, Mastodon, or Hive, which are separate services developed independently of Meta. Threads also has a technical connection to the wider fediverse through Meta’s later work toward ActivityPub integration.