Kim Kardashian and Rylan Clark are among some of the celebrities to have signed up for the new social media site Threads.
The Meta app, from the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has a text-style format which encourages users to post updates and join public discourse.
Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader Dalai Lama also signed up to the newly launched platform.
— R Y L A N (@Rylan) July 6, 2023
Former Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two presenter Clark kept his first update short with a photo captioned: “Get ya threads out for the ladddsss.”
Chef Gordon Ramsay, known for his Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares series, said in his post: “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.
TV personality and model Khloe Kardashian, who is Kim’s sister, is also on the platform and 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.
Also setting up account were American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, radio DJ Chris Moyles, Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, British singer Louise Redknapp, American rapper Jack Harlow and The Help actress Jessica Chastain.
The site is connected to Instagram so usernames and verification checks can carry over so celebrities 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.