Threads – Mark Zuckerberg’s new social network, is expected to compete with billionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter, in the context of Twitter facing many difficulties.

AFP news agency reported that Meta – Facebook’s parent company – on the evening of July 5 (local time, this morning July 6, Vietnam time) launched the social network Threads – a direct competitor to billionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter.

According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, Threads has reached 5 million registrations just a few hours after its launch.

“Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in his first Threads post.

Threads will now work without ads.

According to Meta’s blog, Threads will be similar to Twitter. Users will be able to post short text posts, which can then be “liked,” retweeted, or responded to. Threads does not yet have a direct messaging feature.

Threads posts can be 500 words long, include links, images, and videos up to 5 minutes long.

Threads is also available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store (mobile app marketplaces) in over 100 countries.

However, Threads is not currently released in Europe due to privacy concerns .

According to Reuters, analysts say investors are very interested in Threads as they see the potential of this social network.

By linking up with Instagram, Threads could inherit its big brother’s user base and advertising muscle, helping the new social network compete with Elon Musk ‘s struggling Twitter in advertising  .

Meta shares rose 3% ahead of Threads’ July 5 debut, outpacing gains by rival tech companies in a bear market.

According to Reuters, Threads was launched right at the time when the two “rivals” Zuckerberg and Musk “argued” in the past few months, and the two even prepared for a real “fight” in Las Vegas.

This is also the time when Meta “strikes” when Twitter is in chaos because of Elon Musk’s decisions.

“I think we should have a public communication platform with a billion users,” Zuckerberg  posted on Threads. “Twitter had the opportunity to do that, but it didn’t. Hopefully we will be successful.”

According to Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at market research firm Insider Intelligence, Meta only needs to convince a quarter of Instagram users to join Threads for it to compete with Twitter’s scale.

“The reality is that Meta doesn’t need to convince Twitter users to switch to Threads,” Enberg said.