Threads Barrels to 70 Million Sign-Ups in Just 2 Days

Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed today that his firm’s new service has had over 70 million sign-ups in its first two days. Threads has immediately jumped the queue of eager competitors to become the largest alternative to Twitter by far. And if this growth continues, it will surpass Twitter’s user base this year.

“70 million sign ups on Threads as of this morning,” he wrote in a thread on the service. “Way beyond our expectations.”

It’s not just Meta’s expectations: Threads’ explosive growth has defied all expectations and thrust Meta’s social media activities back into the spotlight after years of droning virtual reality (VR) drivel. And thanks to its heavy promotions to Instagram’s 2 billion users, Meta has shown the world what can happen when it plays to its strengths and leverages one of its most dominant products.

Meta describes Threads as “a new way to share with text,” but there’s nothing new about sharing with text, and Threads is accurately described as yet another Twitter clone. In some ways, it’s a bit light on features—there’s no way for users to direct message (DM) others, and there’s no web yet—but in others it’s ahead of the game because of its integration with Instagram.

Perhaps as important, Zuckerberg is explicitly avoiding some of the controversies of Twitter under Elon Musk.

“The goal isn’t to replace Twitter,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote when asked about this on Threads. “The goal is to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations, but not all of Twitter.”

“Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads – they have on Instagram as well to some extent – but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals,” he continued. “From a platform’s perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue they might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them. There are more than enough amazing communities – sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc – to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news.”

Whatever anyone thinks of the strategy, it’s working.

After Musk purchased Twitter, millions of users abandoned the service. Some ended up at decentralized alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky. Mastodon had 10 million users as of March, according to Statista, up from the 2.5 million it had at the time of Musk’s Twitter acquisition. And Bluesky, another Twitter (and Mastodon) alternative backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has reportedly obtained over 1 million users despite being an invite-only service for now.

But Twitter still has well over 200 million users—the figure two months before Musk’s acquisition was 238 million—and despite lots of technical issues and haphazard decisions by its owner, it remains far bigger than its potential rivals. But the Mastodon and Bluesky usage numbers pale in comparison to what Meta has accomplished with Threads in just two days. And it makes one wonder when, not if, Threads will surpass the user base of Twitter itself. Attracting just a small percentage of Instagram users will do the trick. But it’s just as possible that the movement to abandon Elon Musk’s Twitter was just waiting for a more credible and user-friendly alternative. And Threads could be that alternative.

As further evidence, Threads has already attracted the types of major brands, influencers, and celebrities that have thus far ignored Mastodon and other alternatives. In the personal technology space, Microsoft and Google have both created multiple accounts on Threads, for example. Both have almost entirely ignored Mastodon.