this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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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.

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[–] Fosheze@lemmy.world 371 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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.

[–] flagellum@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] mawp@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

If that were the case though, wouldn't the number of Threads users be the exact same as the current number of Instagram users?

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[–] jalda@sopuli.xyz 21 points 1 year ago

Exactly, and that's the reason why deleting a Threads account also deletes the Instagram account. Because there is only one account for both services.

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[–] fer0n@lemm.ee 154 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

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

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I signed up for it, they have an option for you to pre-follow people for when they sign up to threads

[–] MusketeerX@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does that person who has been pre-followed then get a notification to join and respond/follow back?

Because that would be a great way to boost the new service exponentially.

[–] vizhal007@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Yes they do

[–] mizu6079@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

You can't really follow someone until they've made an account. Threads has an option where you can go into settings and find a list of your Instagram following list. From there, you can make it so you follow certain people as soon as they join Threads.

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[–] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 91 points 1 year ago

Now we know why it was not launched in EU.

[–] DuckDuckGoneForGood@lemmy.world 67 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I fucking KNEW it.

35 million users my asshole - they’re just counting existing Instagram accounts.

[–] fer0n@lemm.ee 52 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Pretty sure they’re not. I mean those are instagram accounts, but only those who enabled threads. It’s also at 93 million now.

Why is it so hard to believe that people download the app and try it out? It’s easy to do, users don’t have to create a new account, the app is number one on the App Store, they’re probably advertising it in instagram, and it’s still just 20% of the instagram userbase.

Decentralization is nice, but most people don’t care about it and it’s too complicated or annoying to sign up there. Threads is dead simple and people want a Twitter replacement. It’s also "just" a fifth of the Twitter userbase.

[–] RubberDucky@programming.dev 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Most of the people just care for "the hot new thing" some just dislike twitter more, some are forced by friends to use it (me :( )

Is kinda weird seeing so many people on Lemmy just do not trust any data from social media.

The things of the fediverse is that everything is too complicated, seeing my friends signups for Threads they just downloaded 1 app, and max 7 clicks and they made an account, they thought Mastodon was too hard to use :(

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[–] lem_dart@lemm.ee 64 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] YellowtoOrange@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (15 children)

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.

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[–] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (6 children)

It definitely is oogie boogie, which is what makes it illegal in europe as it's against gdpr, which is why it's not available in europe.

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[–] emberwit@feddit.de 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Being able to use the same credentials for logging in is something else than creating a public profile for users that never signed up for the service.

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[–] austin@lemmy.world 59 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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

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[–] TheDonkerZ@lemmy.ca 57 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] airportline@lemmy.ml 50 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] notavote@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They did say "X milions of accounts were ACTIVATED in one day", not "created".

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[–] Zanderlus@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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...

[–] Supervisor194@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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."

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[–] spiderkle@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] eppic@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] Fuzzypyro@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] TemporaryBoyfriend@lemmy.ca 30 points 1 year ago

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.

#WTF

[–] varzaman@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.net 21 points 1 year ago

If anyone was bothering to listen, we've discovered that big tech uses a lot of fraud to make themselves look bigger than they are, especially early on

[–] Markimus@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sounds like Google+ all over again...

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[–] softpboy@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

[–] Junkers_Klunker@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thats the positive side, but im 99% sure that isnt why they did it.

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[–] ihsan@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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[–] Tot@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Will "deleting" my Instagram account make a difference at all?

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

your treads account is apart of your instragram account. You can't delete one and not the other. Meta said they already working away to delete just one

[–] Tot@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Interesting. Weren't they working on a way to have a unified login for FB, IG, and Whatsapp at some point?

I delete the IG app periodically anyways (it's a time suck). Haven't put it back since Threads went live so not even sure what things are looking like anymore. I'm too old for this lol

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[–] sauerkraus@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

It’s literally the same account you already have.

[–] ttmrichter@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah. The Google+ approach to signing up "users".

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[–] Ozymati@lemmy.nz 11 points 1 year ago

Is this not basically what google and Microsoft do with their stuff, minus the subscribe even though they aren't there yet bit? It's your meta account, regardless if you're using that particular feature?

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