Threads: Kim Kardashian and the Dalai Lama among celebrities joining Meta’s new app

Meta’s Twitter alternative launched on Wednesday

Kim Kardashian, Rylan Clark and the Dalai Lama are among some of the celebrities to have signed up for the new social media platform Threads.

The app from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta – the company behind Facebook and Instagram – has a text-style format which encourages users to post updates and join public discourse.

Threads launched on Wednesday (5 July), with Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama among those to sign up to the newly launched platform in its first day.

Other famous figures shared their first posts on the app, with Clark captioning his first photo: “Get ya threads out for the ladddsss.”

Chef Gordon Ramsay, known for his Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares series, wrote: “Is this where I find the lamb sauce?”

Colombian pop singer Shakira already has one million followers on the app, whilst reality TV star and businesswoman Kardashian has one and a half million, despite a lack of posts on her profile.

Khloe Kardashian posted a photo with the caption: “Oh hi my little threaders”.

Other celebrities such as Paris Hilton, former One Direction members Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, The Last Of Us star Bella Ramsey, Dragons’ Den panellists Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett and former Big Brother presenter Davina McCall have also signed up.

Joining them in setting up account were American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, actor and singer Louise Redknapp, rapper Jack Harlow and The Help star Jessica Chastain.

Threads is connected to Instagram, allowing usernames and verification checks to carry over so users can make the move to Threads easily.

Brands and companies including streaming platform Netflix, clothing retailer Pretty Little Thing and supermarket Aldi have also joined the app.

Threads posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos of up to five minutes in length.

On Meta’s website, the company says: “Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.”

Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, which is also text based and allows posts of up to 280 characters.

The South African-born billionaire announced at the weekend that his social media platform would be temporarily limiting the number of tweets people can read in a day, as thousands of users reported problems accessing the site.

Additional reporting by Press Association.