• Meta is reportedly readying to launch its Twitter rival, Threads on 7th July.
• The app was found listed on the App Store for iOS as “Coming Soon.”
• Meta first announced the development of Threads for Instagram in 2019.

This week is shaping up to be one of the worst in Twitter’s history ever since Elon Musk took over, but to paraphrase Pedro Pascal, it can always be worse. This as Meta is reportedly readying to launch its Twitter rival named Threads in the coming days.

7th July to be more precise, that is, if a listing on the iOS version of the App Store is to be believed.

Threads is something that Meta has been working on for a number of years now, with reports of its development surfacing back in 2019 already. The app is said to be a complement to Instagram at the time. Now it looks like Threads will function much like Twitter did in its infancy, being a text-based conversation app, according to Meta.

“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world,” reads the aforementioned App Store listing’s description.

Said listing also marks Threads as free, with it also being available for pre-order.

As pointed out by some people online, Threads may be an interesting alternative, but it does appear to capture quite a lot of user data, with it pulling data linked to a user’s financial information, browsing history, data usage, diagnostics, and even sensitive information.

To be fair though, many of Meta’s other platforms do the same, with very little pushback from users on that front.

It remains to be seen whether Threads will be a viable Twitter alternative, but it looks like Elon Musk is not too perturbed by its impending arrival, taking a swipe at Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Should Threads indeed be launched later this week and be available for South Africans, we’ll be downloading and exploring it to see whether it is indeed a Twitter rival or just another Mastodon or Bluesky.