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.
If that were the case though, wouldn’t the number of Threads users be the exact same as the current number of Instagram users?
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 available in the UK as well. They don’t follow EU privacy laws.
Why would this be illegal in Europe ?
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.
Google Play store alone has 10 mil+ downloads, so it’s easy to assume Apple has roughly the same…so that’s 20 million users right there…
Downloads aren’t equal to individual users, but you knew that because you’re disingenuous, not stupid, right?
Thank you for saying it.
Now we know why it was not launched in EU.
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.
Ah. The Google+ approach to signing up “users”.
Yeah all that mess with Google+ and all that came out of it was we lost the + operator in Google Search.
But you can’t close your threads account without closing your instagram account.
Added to my circle!
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
We were armchair warriors on Reddit. Now, we are armchair warriors on Lemmy. insert spidermen pointing fingers at each other meme here
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I fucking KNEW it.
35 million users my asshole - they’re just counting existing Instagram accounts.
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
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.
Then again metas platform is in no way for the user who cares how their data is being handled.
This is very important. Users choose to give their data over to these companies.
They should have that choice, regardless of the repercussions.
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.
It’s the student loans of privacy.
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.
They do have a choice, just like we can choose to use the fediverse instead of the metaverse.
They chose what’s popular, regardless of the consequences. They should be free to do that just as we should be free to do this.
Personally, I think this should be more popular, but I don’t control the world and don’t care to.
Have you ever heard of a little thing called coercion? False choice? Emotional blackmail?
To pretend that it’s a straightforward choice is downright asinine.
Lol, what?
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.
Err… no they don’t.
I think you need to brush up on the definitions of “want” and “need,” lol.
Thanks for the reminder to delete my Instagram account. Though I’ve never posted anything there, I’ve used it to follow some people.
Is it too much to hope that all of Meta crashes and burns? It’s infuriating seeing Meta, and corporations like them, harvest all of our information…
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.
Nice little webcomic that captures the sentiment: https://mastodon.social/@robcottingham/110679764036454402
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?
Yes it does feel like swapping a ticket for the Titanic with a ticket for the Lusitania.
Why would anyone be surprised by this? Zuckerberg would have to be a complete idiot to not use Instagram’s existing social graph for Threads.
What I’m surprised about is that he didn’t use Facebook.
If you look carefully at Meta’s actions in the last few years, you’ll notice they’re slowly stepping away from the Facebook brand and product. I suspect that they no longer internally consider Facebook to be their main product, giving way for Instagram, which at the moment is a lot more popular and despite the obvious association doesn’t have a tainted name the same way Facebook does.
I wondered if it might be something to do with the real name policy on Facebook. Instagram is closer to Twitter in not having such a policy.
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.
They did say “X milions of accounts were ACTIVATED in one day”, not “created”.
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?
Yeah but the didn’t launch on the EU yet.
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Hey, don’t give them any ideas!
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!
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.
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.
There is nothing wrong with this.
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.
I think you have nailed the reason they have not done this.
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.
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.
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.
Is WhatsApp really that popular???
5 billion downloads on the Play store. Apparently about 1-2 billion of those are not very active. Still huge numbers though.
Threads isn’t even in europe yet thanks to EU privacy rules.
I already have enough spam and scam messages on Whatsapp now imagine they are opening my profile to another billions of people
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.
Just deleted my Instagram account. I really want go delete Facebook and remove all things Meta from my life.
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 :)
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
Thats the positive side, but im 99% sure that isnt why they did it.
You mean to say… They are preemptively manipulating people?? Noooo!
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?
Why does that person need to have an actual account on Threads?
They don’t. They just use their existing Instagram account.
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.
In fairness, it’s pretty smart, IMHO: one of the big difficulties in getting a social site started is getting a critical mass of people together to sustain conversation. Facebook already has plenty of Instagram users, so giving them all access to Threads seems like a pretty good way to bootstrap Threads.
