New social media app 'Threads' dominating market day after release

CHICAGO - A new social media app is dominating the market, just a day after it was released.

It's called "Threads" and it's threatening to put Twitter out of business. However, security concerns may prevent some from jumping on the bandwagon.

Right now, there is no way to opt out of sharing your personal data with the app's maker, Meta. But it doesn't seem to be enough to unravel threads — yet.

"It can access all sorts of pretty private data on your phone. It can access biometric data, location data, browsing history, your phone usage, pregnancy status, religious status, financial info," said Paul Booth, DePaul media and pop culture professor.

So much data, in fact, that Threads is currently banned in the European Union due to strict privacy laws.

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Despite this, the app's popularity is soaring.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted that more than 30 million people have signed up for threads in its first 24 hours.

The app is similar to Twitter. Users can post updates that appear in chronological order. It is owned by Meta, the same company that owns Instagram and Facebook. 

"This is a tremendous threat to Twitter. Twitter only has 300 million active users," said R ‘Ray’ Wang, Constellation Research founder. "So you can only imagine out of the three billion Facebook users and the two billion Instagram users how quickly they could get to 300 million users."

A lawsuit is already looming. The attorney representing Twitter sent Meta a letter accusing the company of trade secret theft through the hiring of former Twitter employees — a lightning-fast response to a platform not even 48 hours old.

"It's only been a day, so we're all sort of wondering what the future is going to hold," said Booth.

Another drawback? Threads users can't delete their accounts without deleting their Instagram accounts as well.