Automatically creating a shadow account for everyone on Instagram?
Even allowing people to follow that account?
Sounds like they really wanted to push Threads out the door in a big way.
Fuck Meta and all but this isn’t news. Meta litterally said straight up that they would be doing this before threads ever launched. If you have an instagram account then that is also your threads account. This isn’t some conspiracy it’s exactly what they told everyone they were doing. It’s no diferent than linked accounts for google services.
I think the difference is that the Threads user count keeps getting thrown around as an indicator of its success and viability, but it’s not a great KPI.
I do think people are using this “realization” of accounts being automatically created as a conspiratorial gotcha, but it’s still important to remind people of this scenario as they evaluate their prospects.
They’re not creating a shadow account, you’re literally logging in with your instagram account.
What this post is implying, is that the user numbers are just existing instagram accounts, which doesn’t make sense because in that case they’d have 2 billion users within the first second.
You can follow/request to follow before the user has actually “created” the account, so they’re lying about which users have done that already, not about how many users they actually have.
Come at me downvotes
Yeah, I signed up for it, they have an option for you to pre-follow people for when they sign up to threads
Now we know why it was not launched in EU.
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WhatsApp is a messenger. Facebook, Instagram and Threads are social media. Also, Threads is actually by Instagram moreso than it is by Meta (although the distinction isn’t too dramatic, it’s just under the Instagram branding)
The fact that WhatsApp is so crucial may very well be the reason. In India and places in Europe, WhatsApp is literally a direct replacement of texting, which means it contains communications from practically everyone and everything - your workplace, your local government, your grocery store, your gym, your friends and family, public services, etc. And since your chats themselves are E2E encrypted, the background usage data Meta can extract from users will be too dirty and unmonetizable.
Their interactions on Facebook and Instagram - now that’s rich data. They get to know exactly where and with which people your preferences and interests lie.
Does anyone remember Google+? When they tried to make everyone with a YouTube account also have a Google+ account.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t go well
Which is a pity because the ideas of having “circles” was actually clever. Or at least I thought so back then. I wonder how modern social media would look like if they all implemented that.
Sadly, it was destined to fail. In Diaspora and in Google+.
The thing is, while people definitely do have different circles, they don’t like to think about these circles in an explicit way.
Facebook has had something like this for a while now, you can set visibility settings on every post, but again almost nobody uses it.
I think something that a lot of the comments are missing here is the fact that threads, Instagram and Facebook all have been migrated from individual accounts to ‘meta’ accounts. I’m certain that we will see this happen with many platforms unless there is a serious shift in data protection laws. I don’t personally think it’s great that it’s the case but that’s just how it is. The meta platform is quite similar to how google migrated YouTube users to google accounts way back in the day. This monolithic structure ensures that they can keep your user data in a more streamlined database. From a sys admin and a business perspective it makes a lot of sense. From a user who doesn’t care and already uses all of those services perspective it makes a lot of sense. From a privacy conscious user perspective it makes no sense. Then again metas platform is in no way for the user who cares how their data is being handled.
I guess another perspective is talking about interoperability. It kind of feels like they are taking the web3 (I know it’s a loaded term) approach but instead of applying it in a way that allows free development and communication in a way that basically pulls from decentralized/distributed databases you instead get a centralized monolithic model that creates interoperability within their own walled garden.
Dude there are people with the name poo poo pee pee on Facebook. I regret ever using my real name with Google and Facebook
This seemed obvious the moment they said 10m accounts on launch. People aren’t that proactive
It seems obvious because they literally said that’s what they’re doing. They’re not trying to hide it.
If you have an Instagram account, it literally takes a single click to sign up for Threads. Your Instagram account is the same as your Threads account.
It’s like how your Gmail account is the same as your Google Drive account.
They did say “X milions of accounts were ACTIVATED in one day”, not “created”.
Can we please stop with the misinformation campaign.
Everyone on here is trying to pat each other on the back by being better than Reddit.
So far no one on here acts differently from Reddit, no matter how much you guys like to pretend lol.
“Shadow accounts” lol. It’s literally your instagram account. Threads is built on top of Instagram. None of this is some hidden secret.
I’d you have to create a threads account, which shares and logins to your Instagram account, for it to be active, but people are being sent advice to follow accounts which haven’t been activated, then this is bad faith behaviour and not misinformation.
Why does everything have to be a conspiracy with some people? Threads literally and directly explains that it uses your Instagram account. They’re the same account. Nothing crazy. No magic. No oogie boogie. Just the same account.
You need to activate the threads account. People are being asked to follow accounts which haven’t been activated IE created.
You’re missing the point.
I don’t think I’m missing any point. Have you used it? They’re owned by the same company. Threads is separate but part of Instagram. Other than the user name being reserved on Threads in case the Instagram user wants to sign up, there isn’t an account created. If you try to search the name of any of those accounts in Threads it doesn’t come up at all. (Edit: mistyped a word)
Argh
I smell an antitrust lawsuit coming up. Whether we hate Twitter or not, they could have a valid case against Meta here as this shit is anti-competitive as fuck. If Elon is smart enough, and that’s a big if, he could seize the opportunity to sue Meta over this and win. To just be able to recycle existing Instagram users gives Meta an unfair advantage over existing microblogging social media platforms.
Using an advantage does not mean it’s anti competitive.
It is anti-competitive because it is like Windows forcing Internet Explorer as a default, which the EU for instance ruled anti-competitive in the past.
But they aren’t forcing Threads as a default. They are associating Instagram accounts to Threads accounts, the same way Google associates GMail accounts to GDrive.
We all hate Facebook, but can we hate them for the things that they actually do, instead of inventing false reasons to hate them?
Good point, the GMail and GDrive analogy is indeed more accurate. Though I don’t believe Google is a good example as it is actually the subject of many antitrust lawsuits.
