Meta is planning to launch a rival social media app to displace Twitter as the world’s “digital town square”

After losing billions of dollars on its ambitious metaverse project, Facebook’s parent company Meta is now setting its sight on Twitter. According to an exclusive report from Reuters, Meta Platforms is currently exploring plans to launch a new social media app to compete with as part of its effort to displace Twitter as the world’s “digital town square.”

Meta is the latest in a series of tech companies that aim to challenge Twitter’s dominance in the microblogging space. Mastodon, a Twitter-like service that was launched in 2016 managed to gain 2 million monthly active users but was nowhere big enough to challenge Twitter. Meta said the new app will be based on a decentralized framework like Mastodon.

“We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time Meta has tried to compete with other successful apps. As we reported back in 2020, the social giant launched Reels, a TikTok competitor but the app failed to gain traction. Just this week, Meta announced it was cutting its Reels Play bonus program on Instagram, The Verge reported.

Meta did not specify the launch date for the new app. Meta experienced a surge in user growth during the early 2010s following the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, but recently has been encountering fierce competition from the Chinese short-video platform, TikTok.  Meta’s monthly active users for its family of apps grew 4.2% in the December 2022 quarter, a 4.6% decline from a year earlier when the company had 8.8% user growth.

“It is a strategy to dominate all spaces under the social media and have offerings that cover all use-cases and demographics,” said Jehil Thakkar, Partner, Deloitte India.