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Meta’s Twitter Rival, Instagram Threads, Launches July 6
If you’ve been considering ditching Twitter, the new competitor might be just what you’ve been waiting for.
Meta’s hotly anticipated Twitter competitor, Instagram Threads, is expected to launch on July 6th, after tech sleuths noticed an Apple App Store listing for the new app, as well as an Android equivalent on Google’s Play Store.
As well as the new apps, Meta has now added a launch date ticker to their Instagram app, which can be activated by typing “threads” into the search box (plus several related keywords), causing a ticker icon to appear in the search bar, along with a link to what is expected to be the platform’s homepage The countdown ticker confirms the July 6th launch date, ending at 10 AM ET.
The App Store and Google Play Store descriptions of the new Instagram Threads app show screenshots of how users can log in using their Instagram handles and views of an interface similar to Mastodon, Bluesky, and of course, Twitter. Like those platforms, Threads will allow users to follow and connect with their favorite creators and other users who love the same things or share similar opinions.
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Last month, Meta explained that Instagram Threads would integrate with the decentralized social media protocol ActivityPub, with one of the executives noting, somewhat controversially: “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run,” which sparked a humorous exchange that led to a potential cage match fight between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
In response to the news of the launch of Instagram Threads, Elon Musk issued a handful of tweets concerning the amount of user data that Meta’s apps would collect. However, it should be noted that Instagram’s existing app already has access to the same dataset.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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