Meta’s Twitter Rival, Instagram Threads, Launches July 6

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.