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.

[–] daguito81@waveform.social 89 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] flagellum@lemmy.world 32 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 16 points 1 year ago (2 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?

[–] damnYouSun@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] lamentforicarus@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It's available in the UK as well. They don't follow EU privacy laws.

[–] NoTime@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It would be more wouldn't it?

Total = Number of Instagram accounts + Threads only accounts

[–] mawp@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Don't think you can make a Threads only account (at least at the moment anyway)!

[–] jalda@sopuli.xyz 19 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.

[–] ballzovsteel@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Thank you for saying it.

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

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.

[–] pohui@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I really think they are not, those are all account from people who have actively signed up. Threads really is that much bigger than Mastodon, and it's not that surprising.

[–] dreamfall@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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...

[–] Cabrio@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Downloads aren't equal to individual users, but you knew that because you're disingenuous, not stupid, right?

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.