Technology @beehaw.org 0x815 @feddit.de 1y ago

Meta appears to automatically create Threads shadow accounts for everyone on Instagram and allows users to follow those shadows

newsie.social Tejas Harad (@h_tejas@newsie.social)

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 ...

Who is surprised?

40 comments

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.
- Okay, but that still means their user count is fake.
- 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.
"Hey, we already have 30 million users in just 3 days! Look everyone how relevant we are!!"

Sure buddy.
i am begging fedi users to understand that threads and instagram use the same account
- At this point it's just willful ignorance.
  
  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.
Reptilian alien who controls the Meta universe: They "trust me". Dumb fucks.
Not only that, they create a 'shadow' profile of you even if you don't have any meta accounts at all.

https://www.newsweek.com/facebook-tracking-you-even-if-you-dont-have-account-888699
- Yeah, Facebook has been doing this for years
So it's time to delete my old IG if I can remember the log in, got it.
- If you used your real info, you can get it deleted by pretending to live in California. I think that Meta's compliance page is hard to find.
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.
Now it makes sense why there already a couple of requests when I briefly installed threads.

40 comments