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.
Yeah this Threads issue is getting into the tin foil delusional territory now. Just as you said. They literally say “well use your Instagram acccount” of you bother to read their disclaimers they literally tell you that they are literally using your Instagram account. It’s “Threads by Instagram”. When you first log in it ll import all your Instagram contacts and you cna “follow” them. And if they don’t have it yet it’ll say “you’ll follow as soon as they join threads” there is no “Shadow Threads account, because they are using the Instagram account.”.
You can definitely be against threads and Meta. I Personally am not super thrilled about it. But there is way more than enough to hate a out meta and threads without making stuff up.
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.
No because they’re only doing this for Instagram users who are located in the United States. It hasn’t launched anywhere else yet.
Probably because it will be quite illegal in Europe so they probably are not going to do it for European users but it hasn’t launched there yet anyway so we don’t know.
It’s a conspiracy just in the sense that they are seemingly counting these towards their growth numbers. If they’re saying they have 20 million accounts, but they created 3/4 of them as placeholders, then no…they have 5 million accounts.
Presumably they would have created ~2 Billion Threads accounts since there are ~2B Instagram users. Even if it was just the US there are approximately ~115M Instagram account.
So no, the 70M user number would just be the number to actually try Threads.
It’s not creating a “shadow account”, it is literally the same account. Threads is just a different frontend for what already existed with Instagram. And Meta would’ve been stupid, if they wouldn’t have use what they already have.
Oh for sure, but it does make me wonder how accurate the sign up reports are.
Does Threads report people who actually sign up and “claim” their “shadow accounts,” or does it count actual accounts and “shadow accounts?” The former is definitely a more accurate count, while the latter is basically numbers padding.
My understanding, it is reporting people who specifically elect to sign up for Threads using their Instagram account. On instagram profiles, they have been showing a badge with their Threads subscriber number that you only get when you elect to join Threads. This increases sequentially.
The highest number on the badge should give a good indication of how many Instagram users at least “claimed” their Threads account.
ITT: no one who actually went through the sign-up process. It’s like a 3 step process. Eventually you get brought to a screen that asks if you want to follow all of your current followers on Instagram. You can choose yes or no to all the people you currently follow, or you can individually select who you want to follow in Threads the people you follow on Instagram. If you select anyone that has not yet activated their Threads account it literally tells you that nothing will happen for now, but if and when the user activates the account, you will follow them if they are public or it will request to follow them if they are private.
There’s no magic happening here. There’s no shadow accounts…you use the SAME login for Instagram and Threads. They obviously know when you activate your threads account and it will just show the list of users who have already completed the signup and requested to follow you
Now I understand, thanks for explaining. I think it’s just the logical thing to do, it’s just the screen when someone registers on threads and doesn’t mean it creates a shadow account, it’d be more complicated actually
Actually, to Meta’s credit here, they do transparently say this when you make an account.
You can send follow requests to all of your Insta friends, and once they activate a Threads profile, they will see any follow requests they may have gotten.
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.
It’s not really a choice though, is it? They can’t access fb without “choosing” that and for many, Facebook used to be/is the only way some people have to socialize or just contact family members.
They have something that people need. Not kinda want. NEED. They know this and they’re using that leverage to make people agree to things that they never would otherwise. It may technically be legal, but it’s extremely unethical and nowhere near an unencumbered choice.
Do you get it now? If not, that’s too bad. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.
Not only that, there are parts of the world where FB provides the internet for free and its prohibitively expensive for those people to access the internet otherwise. You can’t realistically say those people have a choice.
That’s not even broaching the topic of whether or not we should give people “the choice”. Generally things that are known to be harmful if used in certain ways aren’t allowed to be sold to the general public. We take away “choice” all the time to protect the average idiot, I don’t see how this is any different.
Especially as in some countries, fb is The Internet for most people. Without a fb account I have no idea about events in my area and miss out on private sales.
I do find it weird how so many people for both claimed their accounts were suspended or banned for not using a real name, when I never gave them my real name and have kept both of those accounts the entire time without issue. Maybe it’s because I don’t actually use Facebook; but I still use a lot of Google’s shit because there isn’t anything better yet.
It’s about email if you make account using email and email name and your name not match you will be ban. If you use your mobile number you will not be ban because they don’t know your real name you will only get banned if someone report you for using fake name
Meanwhile, I got my first ever Facebook ban because someone salty about losing an argument reported me for using a fake name. I was using my real name, which has a Scandinavian letter in it, and had to submit a picture of my fucking passport for fb to unlock my account 🤦
I had my fake account deactivated for using a made up name a few years ago. I was forced to giving it a real fake name instead of a comedy one. Haven’t used it years now so I don’t even know if it’s still working.
That was my first thought as well. Facebook is simply too different to Twitter in ways that Instagram is actually similar. On Facebook you’re blogging your life for others to follow. On Instagram and Twitter people are blogging a little of their own, but most users are there to follow others (usually big names or important people) and to comment on events those larger names are blogging about.
That number actually seems pretty low now, considering the number of Instagram accounts is already in the billions. Maybe they didn’t activate all of them to make it seem more believable?
So far Threads has been blocked in the EU because of data privacy concerns. If they don’t show that their code is keeping data stored safely and in the EU it will continue being flagged in all appstores.
What I can’t figure is… who sits down and thinks “fuck Elon Musk and Twitter, I’m sick of this bullshit” and then follows that logic with “you know what I need more of in my life? Fuckin’ FACEBOOK, yeah.”
I think novelty is an unfortunately large part of this. I day unfortunately because I think it’s very lame that we find creating accounts on servers providing the same service as another service we already an account on … interesting.
“We were promised flying cars and instead got 160 characters”. Well now we’ve got 160 characters … twice?!
Meaningless superficial cheap FOMO weaponised as advertising fodder. Shameful really.
They might not be real supporters. They are probably shill accounts forum sliding and doing the same things to control consensus they have done everywhere else.
This is so true. I wish there was a will/way to eliminate bots altogether on a platform. The more popular a platform is, the more bots swarm in to sway the opinions of the crowd - political opinions, consumer opinions, you name it. Reddit was lousy with bots. Constant ceaseless opinion farming. What’s to stop Lemmy from becoming just as obnoxious?
And now Meta knows when she’s having her period, the phone number of her gynecologist, and what period products she buys… thanks to the app spying on her health and fitness, contact, and shopping data.
What I find curious is that Meta is super willing to use Instagram to boost their new services, but not WhatsApp.
WhatsApp is installed in more than 92% of all active smartphones where I live. You need it - that’s how customer support, lawyers, your friends, family and even workplace will communicate with you. I heard India and some European countries also have a lot of WhatsApp users. Yet Meta doesn’t abuse your WhatsApp account to create a Threads profile, for instance. Curious. I wonder how long that’s going to last.
Though if you install WhatsApp on Android, it does also silently install two Meta packages that technically claim to auto-update it and handle authentication… Except WhatsApp only updates via the Google Play Store, and authentication works without them, so I wonder what they’re truly doing running in the background.
I’ve never had a Facebook or Instagram account in my life. But I do use WhatsApp because it’s the main way most friends and family communicate (Australia).
I would not be happy if I found out I suddenly had a Threads account that my friends could follow without me even signing up, just because I use WhatsApp!
I guarantee you that’s not the reason. They did/do similar shit with Facebook and people were pissed, now anyone barely remembers or cares. People don’t care and facwbook/meta/zuck certainly doesn’t.
Things are more complicated than that. Spinning off of facebook was necessary. Just because you’ve done something once doesn’t mean you do the same thing in similar-but-not-identical situations though. It’s all calculation at the end of the day, and each equation has its own set of variables.
Similar to how we’re likely going to see a brand new form of attack, where instead of being EEE’d, he just tries to smother awareness of us and keep us small. Since he can’t actually outright eliminate us.
And because WhatsApp isn't popular throughout since there are also regions that almost exclusively use LINE or very heavily adopted Telegram. Not everyone uses Instagram but it's a popular choice for the kind of service it offers all over the world.
Meta has 100% already made shadow accounts for you across their ecosystem.
They’ve been doing that for just Facebook for at least a decade at this point, with the primary intent of tracking online activity of literally as many people as they can. Much of it is done in an “anonymous” fashion - tied to device MACs, IMEIs, source IP, etc, along with cookies that they’ve persuaded most SaaS companies to integrate on their sites (and often apps), instead of tying it directly to your PII.
Yes, but in this instance, they are allowing people to pre-follow that shadow account and then apparently you get a notification to say they have followed you promoting you to join and follow them back.
That’s a very cunning way to boost their new service quickly!
I’m relieved they’re not doing that with WhatsApp.
Yeah, all fair points. And I agree that letting early adopters concretely engage with/follow shadow accounts that “don’t exist yet” is very fucking cheeky and, imo, more than a bit disingenuous.
You keep saying the word shadow account like it’s some nefarious thing. They are following an existing Instagram account that they already follow, and will get a notification when that existing account starts using a new service.
at least you get to use whatsapp. i happen to be bound to the only two countries on the damn planet that near exclusively use facebook messenger for everything including corporate business support. i’d take whatsapp over facebook messenger any day.
of course, i’d take neither given the choice. but still.
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.
Yes, in very poor countries, they subsidize the data usage for WhatsApp, so that it’s free to end users. It’s extraordinarily popular in Asia and Africa as a result.
There might be things Meta isn’t allowed to do with WhatsApp. Also the concept of account is bit blurry on WhatsApp because you basically login with your phone number and an SMS code sent to your device. This wouldn’t work as well for a service that can be used elsewhere.
They would never greenlight something based on popularity outside the US, that’s just not how Usians think. WhatsApp might as well not be popular anywhere.
For what I’ve heard they reserve existing Instagram usernames so no one can register with your Instagram username, so it’s not as bad at it might sound
This feature can be achieved very easily by them without making accounts. They already have a list of Instagram usenames. When a new user makes an account on Threads, check the username against a simple list of Instagram usernames and if it matches, throw an error stating the username is not available.
Why does that person need to have an actual account on Threads?
You cannot register a new username on Threads only. Threads username = Instagram username. If the username is already taken on Instagram, then it is also not available on Threads.
i did the reverse. deleted my facebook years ago but holding onto my instagram for now. i hardly use it anymore but it’s nice to keep in contact with old friends, but i’m on the fringe of deleting it
It’d be a luxury for me to delete insta but as a cartoonist that’d be just shooting myself in the foot. That said. I don’t have a FB anymore and only content post to both IG and Reddit these days. I do all my hangin’ here now :)
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