Threads, Instagram’s popular alternative to the struggling X (formerly Twitter), went offline on Thursday afternoon around 1:30 PM ET but quickly regained its footing shortly after 2PM.
People trying to access the platform on either the desktop or the Threads app found blank screens and empty feeds. There was no indication that Instagram, with which Threads is somewhat tightly integrated, suffered any similar difficulties.
Downdetector.com, which tracks consumer complaints for online service outages, noted a sharp uptick in complaints starting at around 1:30 PM.
Threads launched last year and quickly skyrocketed to prominence and popularity. Since July, it’s been slowly adding features that put it almost on a level playing field with rival X, which has been bleeding advertisers, and possibly users, since Elon Musk took over in late 2022.
We did take a glance over at X where “Threads Down” never trended, but some X users did report that they, too, could not access Threads.
This was the first significant outage for the social media platform since its launch. Perhaps it coincided with Threads testing out some major new features like the ability to save draft posts or add GIFs through the desktop.
TechRadar asked Instagram CEO and Threads overlord Adam Mosseri what happened and will update this post with his response.
Post by @lanceulanoff
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