Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg celebrated as the company's Threads platform passed 400 million active users, closing the gap on Elon Musk's X.
Various estimates indicate that X, which went live in 2006 as Twitter, has between 500 million and 600 million active monthly users.
"Threads on the up and up," Mr Zuckerberg posted on the platform with a fire emoji.
Adam Mosseri, who leads Meta's Instagram app and briefly oversaw Threads, also hailed the news.
"This started as a zany idea to compete with Twitter and has evolved into a meaningful platform that fosters the open exchange of perspectives," Mr Mosseri wrote.
He said those at Meta working on Threads know there is more work to be done to keep the user base growing. b
"I'm grateful to all of you for making this place what it is today," Mr Mosseri said.
Meta hastened the development of Threads in 2023 and launched it shortly after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter caused significant concern and controversy among users who worried about the world's richest person withdrawing various fact-checking and hate speech policies, among other changes.
In the initial description for the app on Apple iOS App Store, Meta said it wanted Threads to be a place “where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what you'll care about tomorrow”.
Because the app was paired heavily with Meta's Instagram accounts, it was quickly able to accumulate 100 million users in its first week, alengagement time on the app initially struggled to grow.
The similarity of Threads to X at the time prompted Mr Musk's company to send a letter to Meta alleging “wilful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property”. But there was no specific litigation.
The decision by Meta to pair the app with Instagram and make the sign-up process significantly easier increased interest in the platform. But it also caused scrutiny in countries such as Turkey, where regulators accused the app of breaching data-sharing policies due to its tie-in with Instagram.
Meta also later made tweaks to Threads to comply with data-sharing rules, among other policies in the EU.
While there is still much debate over how much time users are spending on Threads, it has managed to provide an alternative to X, which continues to operate under a cloud of scrutiny due to Mr Musk's recent forays into politics.
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Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE
There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
