Meta, the parent company to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, will release a new microblogging app called Threads — as a potential competitor of Twitter — on Thursday. 

Threads – which will be connected to Instagram, another Meta-owned company – is expected to mimic the Twitter product and draw from Meta’s Instagram user base.

Users will be able to use their Instagram accounts to log in to the new app, which self-describes on the App Store as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app” to “discuss everything from the topics you care about today.” 

Though Meta already owns Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, the company has long searched for a product to compete with Twitter’s popularity: A Twitter employee wrote in an internal post that “Twitter is in crisis and Meta needs its mojo back,” according to a December 2022 report by The New York Times. The employee added, “LET’S GO FOR THEIR BREAD AND BUTTER.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 50 million consumers use both Twitter and Instagram, and Meta likely hopes to capitalize on that base. The company has previously adopted similar tactics to combat competitors, such as introducing Stories to compete with Snapchat and Reels to rival Tiktok.

The announcement comes after months of publicity about a rivalry between Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter owner Elon Musk, culminating in a proposed boxing fight between the two, as suggested by Zuckerberg. 

Since Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, the company has faced a bucket of controversies over significant cuts to its workforce, changes to its “blue check” verification process, and loosening moderation rules. The company also gained public attention following Musk’s decision to release the “Twitter Files” to several journalists, including Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. 

Most recently, Musk announced over the weekend that he would place “temporary limits” on how many Tweets accounts can view per day, citing “extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation,” according to his Twitter account. 

Twitter has also likely experienced a steep decline in advertising revenue: The company posted $4.5 billion in 2021, the last year its financials were public before Musk took the company private, but Twitter is predicted to garner only $3 billion in 2023 advertising revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Despite the struggles the company has faced, companies Mastodon and BlueSky, as well as Trump’s Truth Social, all of which have tried to rival Twitter, have not yet gained enough traction to compete with Twitter’s more than 350 million users.

Meta reported a total of 2.99 billion monthly average users across its platforms in its first-quarter earnings report.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine requested a major disaster declaration on Monday from the Biden administration for East Palestine, 150 days after the Norfolk Southern train derailment.

In a letter to President Joe Biden, the state’s Republican governor explained that the deadline to make the request was Monday, after the Federal Emergency Management Agency refused to grant an extension, while the state “continues to evaluate long term needs” stemming from the early February train incident. DeWine added that assistance to the community from Norfolk Southern, which faces litigation over the derailment and just announced last Friday that it would sue rail car owners over cleanup costs, is not guaranteed.

“The possibility remains that the voluntary support provided by Norfolk Southern could at some point in the future cease, and this Declaration is needed to ensure that the State and Federal government use all resources available to step in and provide the community with needed assistance,” DeWine wrote.

Recently released documents from the National Transportation Safety Board show the freight train derailed on February 3 while passing through the small town of East Palestine, a village near Ohio’s border with Pennsylvania, after a car’s wheel set fell off, according to The New York Times. Although no one was killed in the derailment, local residents were soon terrified by the health and environmental threats posed by the controlled burn of toxic chemicals that spilled out of tanker cars.

DeWine, who noted that officials had determined a “controlled release” would be the safest course of action meant to “avoid the dangers of explosion,” said that the clean-up of the site continues to this day, five months later.

“Residents continue to report medical conditions and are concerned that the air and water were impacted by the chemicals released during this incident,” the governor added. “This derailment and the subsequent controlled release were extraordinary events that continue to garner national media coverage.”

DeWine also said the state is still working to “identify current needs and evaluate the future impacts” the disaster will have on individuals and the East Palestine community.

“In addition to the physical and mental health impacts, there have been economic impacts,” the governor wrote. “Homeowners and business have seen property value decline and loss of business as people are hesitant to come into the community.”