The newly-launched platform by Meta, Threads, has left behind Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT in securing 100 million sign-ups in the lease amount of time. Threads have bagged over 100 million users in less than five days after the launch.
AI tool ChatGPT took two months to touch the 100 million user benchmark. On the other hand, TikTok took nine months to reach the mark. ChatGPT and TiTok have immense popularity in Pakistan and have a large Pakistani-based user ecosystem.
Despite being unavailable in Europe, the new app gained record followers from 100 countries after a successful launch on Wednesday (5 July 2023). So far, Meta is not sure how to manage the app under the data privacy legislation by the European Union.
Threads’ arch-rival Twitter has faced multiple technical failures after Elon Musk took over the charge as chief of the platform and sacked thousands of employees. His decision of introducing charges for free services and allowing right-wing accounts caused a backlash on the platform. Many users lost their verification (blue tick mark) for not paying the verification fee.
The void gave a chance to several rivals to take Twitter’s position, but most platforms do not have the capacity to grow and dethrone Twitter. But in the case of Threads, it became a major threat because of its linkage to Instagram, which already has one billion users.
Earlier, Elon Musk threatened to make a lawsuit against Meta for stealing trade secrets and intellectual property. Musk, in one of his tweets, said that Threads is a copy-paste application. He called Zuckerberg a lizard and said that he would soon see the Meta owner in the cage.
Meta has denied the claims but it would be interesting to see if Twitter can survive the competition or is thrown out of the market by Threads.