India is set to launch a spacecraft to the moon Friday.
If successful, it would make India only the fourth country to do so, after the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China.
It will take the $75 million Chandrayaan-3 over a month to reach the moon’s south pole in August.
The south pole is a special place of interest because scientists believe water is present there.
Chandrayaan-3’s equipment includes a lander to deploy a rover.
Chandrayaan-3 means “moon craft” in Sanskrit.
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Hackers, possibly linked to China’s intelligence agencies, are being blamed for a monthlong campaign that breached some unclassified U.S. email systems, allowing them to access to a small number of accounts at the U.S. State Department and a handful of other organizations.
Microsoft first announced the intrusion Tuesday, attributing the attack on its Outlook email service to Chinese threat actors it dubbed Storm-0558.
The company said in a blog post that the hackers managed to forge a Microsoft authentication token and gain access to the email accounts of 25 organizations, both in the U.S. and around the globe, starting in mid-May.
The company said access was cut off after the breach was discovered a month later.
“We assess this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems for intelligence collection,” Microsoft said. “This type of espionage-motivated adversary seeks to abuse credentials and gain access to data residing in sensitive systems.”
The State Department confirmed Wednesday that it had discovered the breach and had taken “immediate steps” to secure its systems and to notify Microsoft.
Some U.S. officials, however, were hesitant to back Microsoft’s attribution for the attack while saying the U.S. “would make all efforts to impose costs” on whoever was responsible.
“The sophistication of this attack, where actors were able to access mailbox content of victims, is indicative of APT [advanced persistent threat] activity but we are not prepared to discuss attribution at a more specific level,” a senior FBI official told reporters Wednesday, briefing them on the condition of anonymity.
According to senior officials with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the number of U.S. victims of the Microsoft Outlook breach was in the single digits and only a small number of accounts were accessed.
They added that because the breach was detected quickly, the hackers did not have access to any email account for more than a month and never had access to any classified information or systems. In many cases, their access lasted only days.
Still, the officials noted reason for concern.
“The targeting was intentional,” said a senior CISA official who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity.
“This appears to have been a very targeted, surgical campaign that was not seeking the breadth of access we have seen in other campaigns,” the official added.
Despite the reluctance of some U.S. cyber officials to place the blame on China, there was no hesitation Wednesday from key U.S. lawmakers.
“The Senate Intelligence Committee is closely monitoring what appears to be a significant cybersecurity breach by Chinese intelligence,” Chairman Mark Warner said in a statement.
“It’s clear that the PRC is steadily improving its cyber collection capabilities directed against the U.S. and our allies,” the Virginia Democrat added. “Close coordination between the U.S. government and the private sector will be critical to countering this threat.”
Top U.S. intelligence, security and military officials have long warned about the growing cybersecurity threat posed by China-linked hackers.
Earlier this year, CISA Director Jen Easterly warned China “will almost certainly” employ aggressive cyber operations against the U.S. should tensions between Washington and Beijing get worse.
A separate Defense Department cyber strategy likewise warned of China’s increased investments in military cyber capabilities while also empowering a growing number of cyber proxies.
But John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google’s Mandiant cybersecurity intelligence operation, said this latest attack showed that the Chinese threat has evolved in a very dangerous way.
“Chinese cyber espionage has come a long way,” Hultquist said in an email. “They have transformed their capability from one that was dominated by broad, loud campaigns that were far easier to detect. They were brash before, but now they are clearly focused on stealth.”
VOA reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington about the allegations that Beijing was behind the Microsoft attack.
“China is against cyberattacks of all kinds and has suffered from cyber hacking,” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email. “As MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) spokesperson has commented at regular press conference, the source of Microsoft’s claim is information from the U.S. government authorities.”
Liu went on to call the U.S. “the biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief,” saying it was “high time that the U.S. explained its cyberattack activities and stopped spreading disinformation to deflect public attention.”
In its blog post about the latest breach Tuesday, Microsoft said it had managed to repair its systems for all of its customers.
The FBI and CISA on Wednesday separately issued a cybersecurity advisory, urging organizations using Microsoft Exchange Online to take steps to increase their security measures and also their monitoring of their systems to catch any suspicious activity.
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U.S. tech titan Mark Zuckerberg has plunged into a high-stakes game of brinkmanship with the European Union by withholding his new Threads app from users in Europe, but analysts say he will struggle to win the fight.
Threads, billed as the killer of Twitter, a platform that has tumbled into chaos under the leadership of mercurial tycoon Elon Musk, has added more than 100 million users in its first week in app stores.
But Zuckerberg’s firm Meta said it could not be released in Europe because of “regulatory uncertainty” around the Digital Markets Act, an antitrust regulation that will not come into force until next year.
“The reason they gave made me laugh,” said Diego Naranjo, head of policy at campaign group European Digital Rights.
“The regulation is not uncertain, it’s very certain, it’s just that Meta doesn’t like it.”
His theory is that Meta will give Threads to the rest of the world and Europeans will become so vexed at missing out that they will pressure the EU to water down the DMA.
Naranjo, for one, thinks the ploy will fail.
But either way, the rest of the big tech platforms will be glued to their screens as this fight could shape the future regulatory landscape in Europe for all of them.
‘Fatal’ blow
Meta and the rest are already regularly in trouble with EU regulators over their data gathering and retention policies.
They struggle to keep to the terms of Europe’s mammoth five-year-old data privacy regulation (GDPR).
When the DMA was announced, their reaction was muted as it seemed to be about business and competition, a simpler topic for them though not without pitfalls.
The DMA bans the biggest tech firms from favoring their own platforms, particularly problematic for the latest launch as Threads and Instagram accounts are linked.
But the DMA’s Article 5.2 contained a bombshell: the firms will be banned from transferring user data across platforms unless they get consent.
Berin Szoka, president of the pro-business U.S. think tank TechFreedom, said the DMA’s rules would require Meta to ask for the consent of someone’s Instagram contacts before their data could be transferred to Threads.
“In practice, this could prove fatal to Threads’ rollout,” he said, as the network effect would be dead on arrival.
“I don’t really see a good way out here for Meta.”
Naranjo has little sympathy for Meta, saying the European embargo was just a “political push” by the firm against the EU.
“We will see who loses more,” he said. “My guess is that Meta will lose more from not having 450 million potential customers on their network.”
‘Question of time’
The European Consumer Group (BEUC) said the Threads issue showed the DMA doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
“The DMA does not stand in the way of new products or innovation,” said the group’s competition specialist Vanessa Turner.
“It creates an environment for innovation from more competitors and at the same time protects consumers.”
Meta has left the door open for a Threads launch in Europe and few expect it to maintain its embargo indefinitely.
European law expert Alexandre de Streel said big tech firms would probably be hammering out compliance issues with the EU over the coming months.
“I think it’s more a question of time to understand the scope of the legislation and have a dialogue with the commission,” he said.
But Szoka suggested the EU might be about to get a dose of unintended consequences.
“It would be particularly sad if DMA shields Twitter from competition,” he said.
Meta, he argued, had committed to making Threads compatible with its competitors, adding: “That’s something Twitter has only talked about.”
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The European Union signed off Monday on a new agreement over the privacy of people’s personal information that gets pinged across the Atlantic, aiming to ease European concerns about electronic spying by American intelligence agencies.
The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework has an adequate level of protection for personal data, the EU’s executive commission said. That means it’s comparable to the 27-nation’s own stringent data protection standards, so companies can use it to move information from Europe to the United States without adding extra security.
U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order in October to implement the deal after reaching a preliminary agreement with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Washington and Brussels made an effort to resolve their yearslong battle over the safety of EU citizens’ data that tech companies store in the U.S. after two earlier data transfer agreements were thrown out.
“Personal data can now flow freely and safely from the European Economic Area to the United States without any further conditions or authorizations,” EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said at a press briefing in Brussels.
Washington and Brussels long have clashed over differences between the EU’s stringent data privacy rules and the comparatively lax regime in the U.S., which lacks a federal privacy law. That created uncertainty for tech giants including Google and Facebook parent Meta, raising the prospect that U.S. tech firms might need to keep European data that is used for targeted ads out of the United States.
The European privacy campaigner who triggered legal challenges over the practice, however, dismissed the latest deal. Max Schrems said the new agreement failed to resolve core issues and vowed to challenge it to the EU’s top court.
Schrems kicked off the legal saga by filing a complaint about the handling of his Facebook data after whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations a decade ago about how the U.S. government eavesdropped on people’s online data and communications.
Calling the new agreement a copy of the previous one, Schrems said his Vienna-based group, NOYB, was readying a legal challenge and expected the case to be back in the European Court of Justice by the end of the year.
“Just announcing that something is ‘new’, ‘robust’ or ‘effective’ does not cut it before the Court of Justice,” Schrems said. “We would need changes in U.S. surveillance law to make this work — and we simply don’t have it.”
The framework, which takes effect Tuesday, promises strengthened safeguards against data collection abuses and provides multiple avenues for redress.
Under the deal, U.S. intelligence agencies’ access to data is limited to what’s “necessary and proportionate” to protect national security.
Europeans who suspect U.S. authorities have accessed their data will be able to complain to a new Data Protection Review Court, made up of judges appointed from outside the U.S. government. The threshold to file a complaint will be “very low” and won’t require people to prove their data has been accessed, Reynders said.
Business groups welcomed the decision, which clears a legal path for companies to continue cross-border data flows.
“This is a major breakthrough,” said Alexandre Roure, public policy director at the Brussels office of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, whose members include Apple, Google and Meta.
“After waiting for years, companies and organisations of all sizes on both sides of the Atlantic finally have the certainty of a durable legal framework that allows for transfers of personal data from the EU to the United States,” Roure said.
In an echo of Schrems’ original complaint, Meta Platforms was hit in May with a record $1.3 billion EU privacy fine for relying on legal tools deemed invalid to transfer data across the Atlantic.
Meta had warned in its latest earnings report that without a legal basis for data transfers, it would be forced to stop offering its products and services in Europe, “which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.”
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Meta Platforms’ Twitter rival Threads crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday, dethroning ChatGPT as the fastest-growing online platform to hit the milestone.
Threads has been setting records for user growth since its launch on Wednesday, with celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers joining the platform seen by analysts as the first serious threat to the Elon Musk-owned microblogging app.
“That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet,” Zuckerberg said in a Threads post announcing the milestone.
The app’s sprint to 100 million users was much speedier than that of OpenAI-owned ChatGPT, which became the fastest-growing consumer application in history in January about two months after its launch, according to a UBS study.
Still, Threads has some catching up to do. Twitter had nearly 240 million monetizable daily active users as of July last year, according to the company’s last public disclosure before Musk’s takeover.
Twitter has responded to Threads’ arrival by threatening to sue Meta, alleging that the social media behemoth used its trade secrets and other confidential information to build the app.
That claim, legal experts say, could be hard to prove.
Threads bears a strong resemblance to Twitter, as do numerous other social media sites that have cropped up in recent months as users have chafed at Musk’s management of the service. It allows posts that are up to 500 characters long and supports links, photos and videos of up to 5 minutes.
The app also does not yet have a direct messaging function and lacks a desktop version that certain users, such as business organizations, rely on.
It also currently lacks hashtags and keyword search functions, which limits both its appeal to advertisers and its utility as a place for following real-time events like users frequently do on Twitter.
Still, analysts said the turmoil at Twitter, including recently imposed limits on the number on tweets users can see, could help Threads to attract users and advertisers.
Currently, there are no ads on the Threads app and Zuckerberg said the company would only think about monetization once there was a clear path to 1 billion users.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri said last week Meta was not trying to replace Twitter and that Threads aimed to focus on light subjects like sports, music, fashion and design.
He acknowledged that politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads, in what would be a challenge for the app pitching itself as the “friendly” option for public discourse online.
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In a world where technology, such as artificial intelligence, is advancing at a rapid pace, what guidance do technology developers have in making the best ethically sound decisions for consumers?
A new handbook, titled “Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap,” promises to give guidance on such issues as the ethical use of AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
The handbook, released June 28, is the first product of the Institute for Technology, Ethics and Culture, or ITEC, the result of a collaboration between Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and the Vatican’s Center for Digital Culture.
The handbook has been in the works for a few years, but the authors said they saw a need to work with a new sense of urgency with the recent escalation of AI usage, following security threats and privacy concerns after the recent release of ChatGPT.
Enter Father Brendan McGuire.
McGuire worked in the tech industry, serving as executive director of the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association in the early 1990s, before entering the priesthood about 23 years ago.
McGuire said that over the years, he’s continued to meet with friends from the tech world, many of whom are now leaders in the industry. But, about 10 years ago, their discussions started to get more serious, he said.
“They said, ‘What is coming over the hill with AI, it’s amazing, it’s unbelievable. But it’s also frightening if we go down the wrong valley,'” McGuire said.
“There’s no mechanism to make decisions,” McGuire said, quoting his former colleagues. He then contacted Kirk Hanson, who was then head of the Markkula Center, as well as a local bishop.
“The three of us got together and brainstormed, ‘What could we do?'” McGuire said. “We knew that each of these companies are global companies, so, therefore, they wouldn’t really respect a pastor or a local bishop. I said, if we could get somebody from the Vatican to pay attention, then we could make some traction.”
For McGuire, a Catholic priest, getting guidance from Pope Francis and the Vatican — with its diplomatic, cultural, and spiritual influence — was a natural step. He said he was connected with Bishop Paul Tighe, who was serving as the secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education at the Vatican, a department that works for the development of people’s human values.
McGuire said Tighe was asked by Pope Francis to look into further addressing digital and tech ethical issues.
After a few years of informal collaborations, the Markkula Center and the Vatican officially created the ITEC initiative in 2019.
“We’re co-creators with God when we make these technologies,” he said, recognizing that technology can be used for good or bad purposes.
The Vatican held a conference in 2019 in Rome called “The Common Good in the Digital Age.” McGuire said about 270 people attended, including Silicon Valley CEOs and experts in robotics, cyberwarfare and security.
After gathering research by talking with tech leaders, the ITEC team decided to create a practical handbook to help companies think about and question at every level — from inception to creation to implementation — how technology can be used in an ethically positive way.
“Get the people who are designing it. Get the people who are writing code, get the people who are implementing it and not wait for some regulator to say, ‘You can’t do that,'” McGuire said.
These guidelines aren’t just for Catholics, he said.
One of the handbook’s co-authors, Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center, said the handbook is very straightforward and written in a manner business leaders are familiar with.
“We’ve tried to write in the language of business and engineers so that it’s familiar to them,” Skeet said. “When they pick it up and they go through the five stages, and they see all the checklists and the resources, they actually recognize some of them. … We’ve done our best to make it as usable and practical as possible and as comprehensive as possible.”
“What’s important about this book is it puts materials right in the hands of executives inside the companies so that they can move a little bit past this moment of ‘analysis paralysis’ that we’re in while people are waiting to see what the regulatory environment is going to be like and how that unfolds.”
In June, the European Parliament passed a draft law called the AI Act, which would restrict uses of facial recognition software and require AI creators to disclose more about the data used to create their programs.
In the United States, policy ideas have been released by the White House that suggest rules for testing AI systems and protecting privacy rights.
“AI and ChatGPT are the hot topic right now,” Skeet said. “Every decade or so we see a technology come along, whether it’s the internet, social media, the cellphone, that’s somewhat of a game-changer and has its own inherent risks, so you can really apply this work to any technology.”
This handbook comes as leaders in AI are calling for help. In May, Sam Altman of OpenAI stated the need for a new agency to help regulate the powerful systems, and Microsoft President Brad Smith said government needs to “move faster” as AI progresses.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has also called for an “AI Pact” of voluntary behavioral standards while awaiting new legislation.
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A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots told a United Nations summit Friday that they could eventually run the world better than humans.
But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly developing potential of artificial intelligence.
And they admitted that they cannot — yet — get a proper grip on human emotions.
Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the U.N.’s two-day AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.
They joined around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI — and channel it into being used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care.
They were assembled for what was billed as the world’s first news conference with a packed panel of AI-enabled humanoid social robots.
“What a silent tension,” one robot said before the news conference began, reading the room.
Asked about whether they might make better leaders, given humans’ capacity to make errors, Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics, was clear.
We can achieve great things
“Humanoid robots have the potential to lead with a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness than human leaders,” it said.
“We don’t have the same biases or emotions that can sometimes cloud decision-making and can process large amounts of data quickly in order to make the best decisions.
“AI can provide unbiased data while humans can provide the emotional intelligence and creativity to make the best decisions. Together, we can achieve great things.”
The summit is being convened by the U.N.’s ITU tech agency.
ITU chief Doreen Bogdan-Martin warned delegates that AI could end up in a nightmare scenario in which millions of jobs are put at risk and unchecked advances lead to untold social unrest, geopolitical instability and economic disparity.
Ameca, which combines AI with a highly realistic artificial head, said that depended on how AI was deployed.
“We should be cautious but also excited for the potential of these technologies to improve our lives,” the robot said.
Asked whether humans can truly trust the machines, it replied: “Trust is earned, not given… it’s important to build trust through transparency.”
Living until 180?
As the development of AI races ahead, the humanoid robot panel was split on whether there should be global regulation of their capabilities, even though that could limit their potential.
“I don’t believe in limitations, only opportunities,” said Desdemona, who sings in the Jam Galaxy Band.
Robot artist Ai-Da said many people were arguing for AI regulation, “and I agree.”
“We should be cautious about the future development of AI. Urgent discussion is needed now.”
Before the news conference, Ai-Da’s creator Aidan Meller told AFP that regulation was a “big problem” as it was “never going to catch up with the paces that we’re making.”
He said the speed of AI’s advance was “astonishing.”
“AI and biotechnology are working together, and we are on the brink of being able to extend life to 150, 180 years old. And people are not even aware of that,” said Meller.
He reckoned that Ai-Da would eventually be better than human artists.
“Where any skill is involved, computers will be able to do it better,” he said.
Let’s get wild
At the news conference, some robots were not sure when they would hit the big time, but predicted it was coming — while Desdemona said the AI revolution was already upon us.
“My great moment is already here. I’m ready to lead the charge to a better future for all of us… Let’s get wild and make this world our playground,” it said.
Among the things that humanoid robots don’t have yet include a conscience, and the emotions that shape humanity: relief, forgiveness, guilt, grief, pleasure, disappointment, and hurt.
Ai-Da said it was not conscious but understood that feelings were how humans experienced joy and pain.
“Emotions have a deep meaning and they are not just simple… I don’t have that,” it said.
“I can’t experience them like you can. I am glad that I cannot suffer.”
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HONG KONG — Chinese regulators are fining Ant Group 7.123 billion yuan ($985 million) for violating regulations in its payments and financial services, an indicator that more than two years of scrutiny and crackdown on the firm that led it to scrap its planned public listing may have come to an end.
The People’s Bank of China imposed the fine on the financial technology provider on Friday, stating that Ant had violated laws and regulations related to corporate governance, financial consumer protection, participation in business activities of banking and insurance institutions, payment and settlement business, and attending to anti-money laundering obligations.
The fine comes more than two years after regulators pulled the plug on Ant Group’s $34.5 billion IPO — which would have been the biggest of its time — in 2020. Since then, the company has been ordered to revamp its business and behave more like a financial holding company, as well as rectify unfair competition in its payments business.
“We will comply with the terms of the penalty in all earnestness and sincerity and continue to further enhance our compliance governance,” Ant Group said in a statement.
The move is widely seen as wrapping up Beijing’s probe into the firm and allowing Ant to revive its initial public offering. Chinese gaming firm Tencent, which operates messaging app WeChat, also received a 2.99 billion yuan fine ($414 million) for regulatory violations over its payments services, according to the central bank Friday, signaling that the crackdown on the Chinese technology sector could ease.
Alibaba’s New York-listed stock was up over 9% Friday afternoon.
Ant Group, founded by Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, first started out as Alipay, a digital payments system aimed at making transactions more secure and trustworthy for buyers and sellers on its Taobao e-commerce platform.
The digital wallet soon grew to become a leading player in the online payments market in China, alongside Tencent’s WeChat Pay. It eventually grew into Ant, Alibaba’s financial arm that also offers wealth management products.
At one point, Ant’s Yu’ebao money-market fund was the largest in the world, but regulators have since ordered Ant to reduce the fund’s balance.
In January, it was announced that Ma would give up control of Ant Group. The move followed other efforts over the years by the Chinese government to rein in Ma and the country’s tech sector more broadly. Two years ago, the once high-profile Ma largely disappeared from view for 2 1/2 months after criticizing China’s regulators.
Yet Ma’s surrender of control came after other signs the government was easing up on Chinese online firms. Late last year Beijing signaled at an economic work conference that it would support technology firms to boost economic growth and create more jobs.
Also in January, the government said it would allow Ant Group to raise $1.5 billion in capital for its consumer finance unit.
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Just one day after its launch, Threads, the latest social media network, was blocked by the Islamic Republic, denying access to the Iranian population. This action occurred even though an account had been created for Iran President Ebrahim Raisi on the platform.
On Thursday afternoon, Raisi’s user account, under the address raisi.ir, was established on Threads. Within a few hours, by Friday noon, he had garnered 27,000 followers. He has yet to make any posts, apparently because the Presidential Office staff administers Raisi’s social media accounts.
As Raisi’s user account debuted on the social media platform, numerous Iranian social media users have voiced concerns regarding restricted access to the platform since Thursday evening. Users have indicated that similar to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, they require a VPN or proxy to connect to Threads.
Journalist Ehsan Bodaghi said on Twitter: “During the election, Mr. Raisi spoke about the importance of people’s online businesses and his 2 million followers on Instagram. After one year, he blocked and filtered all social media platforms, and now, within the initial hours, he has become a member of the social network # Threads, which his own government has filtered. Inconsistency knows no bounds!”
Another journalist, Javad Daliri, posted this on Twitter: “Mr. Raisi and Mr. Ghalibaf raced each other to join the new social network # Threads. As a citizen, I have a question: Can one issue filtering orders and be among the first to break the filtering and join? By the way, was joining this unknown network really your priority?”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is Speaker of the Parliament of Iran.
Despite the Iranian government’s frequent censorship of social media platforms, officials of the Islamic Republic use these platforms for communication. Notably, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, maintains an active presence on Twitter.
Threads was introduced by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The app was launched late Wednesday. Within two days, Threads has amassed more than 55 million users. The social network shares similarities with Twitter, allowing users to interact with posts through likes and reposts, and nearly doubles the character count limitation imposed by Twitter.
The similarities between Threads and Twitter have sparked a legal dispute between Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. Musk has accused Meta of employing former Twitter engineers and tweeted, “Competition is good, but cheating is not.”
Meta dismissed the copycat allegation, posting on Threads: “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
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Ukraine has been using drones for reconnaissance and attacks since the start of Russia’18s invasion. But sometimes combat drone operators use them to save civilians — or even capture the enemy. Anna Kosstutschenko went to the Donbas region to find out more.
Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy Produced by: Pavel Suhodolskiy
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Threads, a text-based app built by Meta to rival Twitter, is live.
The app, billed as the text version of Meta’s photo-sharing platform Instagram, became available Wednesday night to users in more than 100 countries — including the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan. Despite some early glitches, 30 million people had signed up before noon on Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Threads.
New arrivals to the platform include celebrities like Oprah, pop star Shakira and chef Gordon Ramsay — as well as corporate accounts from Taco Bell, Netflix, Spotify, The Washington Post and other media outlets.
Threads, which Meta says provides “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations,” arrives at a time when many are looking for Twitter alternatives to escape Elon Musk’s raucous oversight of the platform since acquiring it last year for $44 billion. But Meta’s new app has also raised data privacy concerns and is notably unavailable in the European Union.
Here’s what you need to know about Threads.
How Can I Use Threads?
Threads is now available for download in Apple and Google Android app stores for people in more than 100 countries.
Threads was built by the Instagram team, so Instagram users can log into Threads through their Instagram account. Your username and verification status will carry over, according to the platform, but you will also have options to customize other areas of your profile — including whether or not you want to follow the same people that you do on Instagram.
Because Threads and Instagram are so closely linked, it’s also important to be cautious of account deletion. According to Threads’ supplemental privacy policy, you can deactivate your profile at any time, “but your Threads profile can only be deleted by deleting your Instagram account.”
Can I Use Threads If I Don’t Have An Instagram Account?
For now, only Instagram users can create Threads accounts. If you want to access Threads, you will have to sign up for Instagram first.
While this may receive some pushback, VP and research director at Forrester Mike Proulx said making Threads an extension of Instagram was a smart move on Meta’s part.
“It’s piquing [user] curiosity,” Proulx said, noting that Instagram users are getting alerts about their followers joining Threads — causing more and more people to sign up. “That’s one of the reasons why Threads got over 10 million people to sign up in just a seven hour period” after launching.
How Is Threads Similar To Twitter?
Threads’ microblogging experience is very similar to Twitter. Users can repost, reply to or quote a thread, for example, and can see the number of likes and replies that a post has received. “Threads” can run up to 500 characters — compared with Twitter’s 280-character threshold — and can include links, photos and videos up to five minutes long.
In early replies on Threads, Zuckerberg said making the app “a friendly place” will be a key to success — adding that that was “one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently.”
Is Twitter Seeking Legal Action Against Meta?
According to a letter obtained by Semafor on Thursday, Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over Threads. In the letter, which was addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and dated Wednesday, Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Twitter, accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded to the report of Spiro’s letter on Threads Thursday afternoon, writing, “no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee.”
Musk hasn’t directly tweeted about the possibility of legal action, but he has replied to several snarky takes on the Threads launch. The Twitter owner responded to one tweet suggesting that Meta’s app was built largely through the use of the copy and paste function, with a laughing emoji.
Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has also not publicly commented on Wednesday’s letter, but seemingly appeared to address Threads’ launch in a Thursday tweet — writing that “the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”
Hasn’t This Been Done Before?
The similarities of Meta’s new text-based app suggests the company is working to directly challenge Twitter. The tumultuous ownership has resulted in a series of unpopular changes that have turned off users and advertisers, some of whom are searching for Twitter alternatives.
Threads is the latest Twitter rival to emerge in this landscape following Bluesky, Mastodon and Spill.
How Does Threads Moderate Content?
According to Meta, Threads will use the same safety measures deployed on Instagram — which includes enforcing Instagram’s community guidelines and providing tools to control who can mention or reply to users.
Content warnings — on search queries ranging from conspiracy theory groups to misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations — also appear to be similar to Instagram.
What Are The Privacy Concerns?
Threads could collect a wide range of personal information — including health, financial, contacts, browsing and search history, location data, purchases and “sensitive info,” according to its data privacy disclosure on the App Store.
Threads also isn’t available in the European Union right now, which has strict data privacy rules.
Meta informed Ireland’s Data Privacy Commission, Meta’s main privacy regulator for the EU, that it has no plans yet to launch Threads in the 27-nation bloc, commission spokesman Graham Doyle said. The company said it is working on rolling the app out to more countries — but pointed to regulatory uncertainty for its decision to hold off on a European launch.
What’s The Future For Threads?
Success for Threads is far from guaranteed. Industry watchers point to Meta’s track record of starting standalone apps that were later shut down — including an Instagram messaging app also called “Threads” that shut down less than two years after its 2019 launch, Proulx notes.
Still, Proulx and others say the new app could be a significant headache for Musk and Twitter.
“The euphoria around a new service and this initial explosion will probably settle down. But it is apparent that this alternative is here to stay and will prove to be a worthy rival given all of Twitter’s woes,” technology analyst Paolo Pescatore of PP Foresight said, noting that combining Twitter-style features with Instagram’s look and feel could drive user engagement.
Threads is in its early days, however, and much depends on user feedback. Pescatore believes the close tie between Instagram and Threads might not resonate with everyone. The rollout of new features will also be key.
Tens of millions of people have signed up for Meta’s new app, Threads, as it aims to challenge competitor platform Twitter.
Threads launched on Wednesday in the United States and in more than 100 other countries.
In a Thursday morning post on the platform, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 30 million people had signed up.
“Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build out the app,” he said in the post.
Threads is a text-based version of Meta’s social media app Instagram. The company says it provides “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.”
The high number of sign-ups is likely an indication that users are looking for an alternative to Twitter, which has been stumbling since Elon Musk bought it last year. Meta appears to have taken advantage of rival Twitter’s many blunders in pushing out Threads.
Like Twitter, Threads features short text posts that users can like, re-post and reply to. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos and videos that are up to five minutes long, according to a Meta blog post.
Unlike Twitter, Threads does not include any direct message capabilities.
“Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” Zuckerberg wrote in his first post on the app, along with a fire emoji. He said the app had 10 million sign-ups in the first seven hours.
Kim Kardashian, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez are among the celebrities who have joined the platform, as well as politicians like Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Brands like HBO, NPR and Netflix have also set up accounts.
Threads is not yet available in the European Union because of regulatory concerns. The 27-country bloc has stricter privacy rules than most other countries.
Threads launched as a standalone app, but users can log in using their Instagram credentials and follow the same accounts.
Analysts have said Threads’ links to Instagram may provide it with a built-in user base — potentially presenting yet another challenge to beleaguered Twitter. Instagram has more than 2 billion active users per month.
Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino appeared to respond to the debut of Threads in a Twitter post Thursday.
“We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated,” she said in the post that did not directly mention Threads.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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