My partner just created her #Threads account and the account that showed up on top as suggestion to follow was mine. However, I don't have a Threads account.
Basically, anyone who has an Instagram account, #Meta is automatically creating a shadow account for them and also allowing users to follow ...
There’s plenty of things to hate Meta for, but this is inaccurate.
You log into Threads with your Instagram account. There’s no “shadow account”, you’re logging into a second service with the same account and credentials.
I agree that the wording is inaccurate, but some of the essence remains: the second "service" is forced on you. It's somewhat as if anyone with a Fakebook account also automatically had a Whatsapp or Instagram account, or some permutation of this.
It’s not forced on you. If you don’t download Threads and log in, you’re not on threads.
This is akin to saying Google Calendar is “forced” on you if you have a Gmail account. They are separate services that use a common credential, you are under no obligation to use any or all of those services.
Yeah, they probably just duplicated the username DB from instagram, so whenever someone starts using Threads, their username will already be “reserved” for them in an empty profile.
It’s probably even more simple than that - a single DB with a flag for threads_enabled = true/false.
They made it super clear in advance this is how it would work, the app is called “Threads, an Instagram app”, but as always people froth at the mouth for any opportunity to say “Zuckerberg bad”.
That’s not some big secret. Everyone knows meta sucks. We don’t need to make stuff up to prove that. They do that on their own.
No, it’s just that users don’t like systems where you have to opt out by default. Like you used to have to opt out of shitty marketing emails after a purchase, but then we changed that to opt in and everyone is happier.
I don't think that's true. Example: a band I love has a Instagram at remembersportsband if I search threads for that name nothing comes up so I cannot follow them because they have not joined threads
They may have bulk imported a collection of accounts from Instagram into Threads to "kickstart" the site. And not every account was part of the collection.
I'm not surprised because Meta said they were doing just that. Anyone who had an account on Instagram automatically has an account reserved for them on Threads. I don't see anything nefarious about it.