Meta Platforms Inc plans to launch a microblogging app, Threads, days after Twitter Inc executive chairman Elon Musk announced a temporary cap on how many posts users can read on the social media site.
Threads, Instagram’s text-based conversation app, is expected to be released tomorrow and would allow users to follow the accounts they follow on the photo-sharing platform and keep the same username, a listing on Apple Inc’s App Store showed.
The launch comes after Twitter announced a slate of restrictions on the app, including the need to be verified to use TweetDeck.
Photo: Reuters
Musk’s latest announcements to address data scraping have sparked a fierce backlash from Twitter users, and ad experts said it would undermine new CEO Linda Yaccarino, who started in the role last month.
Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on a similar launch on the Google Play Store.
Meanwhile, Twitter has announced that TweetDeck, a popular program that allows users to monitor several accounts at once, would only be available to “verified” users from next month.
TweetDeck, launched more than a decade ago, shows messages in columns and its search and posting functions operate differently from the Twitter Web site or the app.
The firm said in a support message on Monday that it was launching a new version of TweetDeck with various new functions.
“In 30 days, users must be Verified to access TweetDeck,” the message said.
A series of changes to the way Twitter is run left many TweetDeck users unable to see posts on the weekend. Twitter bought London-based TweetDeck in 2011, with technology media putting the price tag at US$40 million at the time.
Additional reporting by AFP
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
RESHAPING COMMERCE: Major industrialized economies accepted 15 percent duties on their products, while charges on items from Mexico, Canada and China are even bigger US President Donald Trump has unveiled a slew of new tariffs that boosted the average US rate on goods from across the world, forging ahead with his turbulent effort to reshape international commerce. The baseline rates for many trading partners remain unchanged at 10 percent from the duties Trump imposed in April, easing the worst fears of investors after the president had previously said they could double. Yet his move to raise tariffs on some Canadian goods to 35 percent threatens to inject fresh tensions into an already strained relationship, while nations such as Switzerland and New Zealand also saw increased
RSS