What are the differences between Threads and Twitter?

( Spanish) — Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has launched Threads, a new social network that seeks to provide a space for text-first conversations online in real time. That feature has been Twitter’s main draw.

Threads was created by the team behind Instagram and is very similar to Twitter, both in design and product description.

Like Twitter, the description of the app says that it is used to get followers and connect with like-minded people. And like the network now owned by Elon Musk, Threads displays a text feed where you can share or repost and quote others’ posts. Also, Threads is the English name of the functionality that Twitter enabled on its platform in 2017, the threads.

Differences with Twitter

Posts in Threads can be up to 500 characters long. On Twitter, the maximum is 280 characters. The thing is that Threads doesn’t show the character counter.

If you have a verified Instagram account, it will also be in Threads. On Twitter, verifying an account costs $8.

The integration with Instagram is a marked difference: the contact base is available and the possibility of sharing content on other networks at the same time is something that Twitter does not offer.

Meta said it plans to make Threads “compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web.” This would allow users in Threads to work with other applications that have the ActivityPub protocol (such as Mastodon and WordPress), says Meta.

Twitter just implemented a limit for reading tweets, initially announced at 6,000 tweets per day, and later Elon Musk said it is expanded to 10,000 verified, 1,000 unverified and 500 for new unverified. So far Threads doesn’t have those limits.

Threads can include links, photos and videos up to 5 minutes long, with no limit for unverified accounts. On Twitter, unverified accounts can only post 2:20 videos.

On Threads, the user can only browse posts in their feed, while on Twitter people can see trends and topics outside their feed on the front page.

The Threads feed shows posts from people you follow and popular content, and unlike Twitter you can’t just see the accounts you follow or a chronological list.

So far, Threads does not have an option to save drafts, something that Twitter does allow.

The Threads search engine for now is limited to accounts, not words of the contents. There are no hashtags either.

Threads does not have private messages, for that it depends on Instagram.

Opening threads is done with one click on Musk’s network, while it takes several clicks on Meta’s.

On Twitter one can see other accounts’ likes in a separate tab, while Threads doesn’t offer that option yet.

At this time, Threads is ad-free. Twitter yes.

It’s not Instagram, but Threads ‘get out’ of that network and have the same rules

Access to Threads is through the Instagram account. “Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand it into text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas,” Meta said on his blog upon launching the product.

Threads is a platform focused on text messages with the possibility of sharing images and videos, like Twitter, while the focus of Instagram is primarily audiovisual content. Threads takes advantage of each user’s existing access and connections on Instagram.

In addition to reposting and quoting people’s Threads in the same app, you can also share the posts to your Instagram stories.

Keep in mind that any account you block on Instagram will automatically be blocked from Threads.

Threads operates with the same logic as Instagram when it comes to blocking or muting unwanted accounts.

Hit Twitter

Facebook had tried to compete with Twitter in various ways over the years, for example by copying signature features like hashtags and trends. The release of Threads is considered Meta’s biggest hit on Twitter to date.

The app reached 30 million users in less than 24 hours since its launch Mainly becauseUnlike Twitter-like rivals like Mastodon and Bluesky, Meta has a vast amount of resources to send to Threads, plus a gigantic user base on Facebook and Instagram that can promote the use of the new social network.

Many Twitter users have expressed their desire for an alternative since Musk took over the platform late last year. Frequent technical issues and policy changes have caused some notable Twitter users to head for the exits.

Under Musk, Twitter has encountered one crisis after another, from mass layoffs affecting its content moderation teams to more frequent system outages and the rocky launch of a controversial new verification system. Twitter’s own investors have repeatedly lowered the estimated value of the company since the acquisition.

Last week, Twitter made tweets inaccessible to anyone not logged in, reducing the reach of content on the platform. Tweets that were once viewable by anyone with a web browser suddenly required an account to view the content.

Twitter then announced that users will soon be required to pay to use TweetDeck, a longtime free proprietary app loved by professional users that lets them view multiple Twitter feeds at once and display custom search results or Twitter lists. . The change will go into effect in August and will require TweetDeck users to be subscribers to the Twitter Blue checkmark to maintain access.

With reporting from ‘s Uriel Blanco, Clare Duffy, Samantha Kelly and Brian Fung.