@h_tejas Well that's not okay..

Meta is using its monopoly position to further entrench its monopoly using shady practices.

@h_tejas wtf

@h_tejas that's so creepy. But I expect creepy from Meta.

@h_tejas @Theorem_Poem oh no this is horrifying. I think I’m gonna close my insta. Sadly

@h_tejas somehow not even surprised.

@h_tejas And to think there are people still fantasising about it being possible to migrate from Threads to Mastodon. That will never be possible.

@h_tejas I don't think it is a shadow account, per se, they are the same account. They aren't separate accounts. It's more like enabling the threads feature for your Instagram account. You even get cross notifications between the two apps/services. That's why you can't currently delete your threads account without also deleting your insta account.

@h_tejas
Thank you for the reminder.
Just added to my Pi-hole blacklist…

@h_tejas And it's a horrid thing to add to your electronics.

@h_tejas @seachanger Yeah, the launch of a Threads was the final push I needed to finally delete my Instagram and Facebook accounts. The fact that you can only delete your Threads account if you delete your Instagram account makes it clear how intertwined they are.

@h_tejas I suspected this was the case when they reported day 1 users. Either it was a bunch of people signing up because they were curious, without the intent of staying. Or they had imported a fraction of their Insta user base without anyone being any the wiser.
Shady as heck.

@h_tejas @BlackAzizAnansi Literally the least surprising feature I’ve heard about yet! How’s her experience so far otherwise ?

@h_tejas@newsie.social Ahhhhhhhhhh.... I was wondering if I needed to delete my IG account (about 12 cat and car pics, which I haven't used in years).

Guess that answers that!

@h_tejas *disappointed but not surprised*
also found out another promotion tactic they're doing is showing every person's number of joining threads (like your were number 12345 to join threads) with the in IG bio to redirect ppl on your IG profile to Threads profile

@h_tejas yes, it is actually a good feature. You just sign in with your Instagram account and all your existing followers and followings are brought over

@h_tejas Ugh. Really? Thanks for sharing this. I should now go and close down my long-dormant Instagram account.

@h_tejas I suspect it's more likely that Threads accounts simply *are* Instagram accounts i.e. the same row in the same database is used for both IG and Threads, and there's something like a threads_enabled column that gets switched from FALSE to TRUE when you "sign up"

@h_tejas wow they’re coooking the books and really juicing the app

How many will love the Zuck more? 🙄

@Empathy1st

@h_tejas Odd question. Is your partner cool with the extreme intrusiveness of the app? It essentially shares all data that her phone contains.

I just can’t wrap my head around that.

@h_tejas "600 billion people signed up on the first day!"
Uh huh.
This is how they justify to advertisers that they have a consumer base by creating all those fake accounts.
Companies do the same when they're getting ready to sell themselves off - they hire like crazy to up the sale price of the business.
Motorola did this in 2001.

@h_tejas
Yikes

@h_tejas mastodon also does the same in other apps associated in the fediverse. Mastodon doesn't collect critical info on people however.

@h_tejas idk. It's been 3, 4 days? And I've already blocked as many as twitter, it seems. I'm not interested in corporate conglomerates, influencers and dumb ass jokes (clever jokes are just fine). Anyhoo, I may stick around here a lot more.

@h_tejas ok, that's a handy way to make account signups viral

@h_tejas That is creepy.

@h_tejas I may have to delete my #Instagram account. I only keep it because a relative is on there who has no other social media.

@h_tejas @BlackAzizAnansi Seems like Threads/Meta is doing all kinds of things people aren’t asking for…

@h_tejas Deeply disturbing.

@h_tejas is she pleased …or pissed? Serious question

@h_tejas It's not creating shadow account or any accounts at all.

There are no Threads accounts, there are only Instagram accounts which are using Threads, and Instagram accounts which are not using Threads.

@h_tejas Sounds familiar...
Facebook was (and still) tracking it's users across the web and creates shadow profiles that is associated with them, without those people creating a Facebook account. The reason it's obvious...for profit.

Meta was, is and will be a bad company.

@h_tejas

Which totally explains the “remarkable day 1 registrations”

30 million new users my <insert anatomic euphamism here>

Liars lie. FBook is FBook

@h_tejas I created a new Instagram account, so that #Meta couldn't auto-add anyone I follow on my real Instagram account.

@h_tejas I wonder whether anyone is mass-creating shadow accounts (complete with onboarding emails with magic login links) using email addresses from data breaches.

@h_tejas 👀

@h_tejas this also makes me wonder if I have someone blocked (for very valid reasons), will they now be blue to shadow stalk if they have downloaded threads?! 😖

@h_tejas That is super fascinating! It definitely doesn't surprise me, they will do anything to inflate their social media network. Also, IIRC they have done shadow profiles on FB so that people who haven't created a FB profile automatically have information collected on them to the point it's like an actual Facebook profile is built just based on the data they've collected through ads and SDKs.

@h_tejas That's one way to "miraculously" have 30million signups in the first few days.

@h_tejas

Welp that is one way to artificially inflate numbers...

Still in my opinion monthly active users is always the more important metric, which probably won't be publicly available.

@h_tejas
70 million users in 3 hours 👏🤡
@marveltech

@h_tejas

I guess I'm a little surprised I didn't question this when I first heard about the 'import' feature.

@h_tejas And thus ended my Insta account. Life’s getting pretty simple now!

@h_tejas
Time to go delete my Instagram account!

@h_tejas Why is this strange?

@h_tejas Instagram creating shadow accounts for Threads?
Shouldn’t that be illegal?
Considering fake users who have no clue, their accounts are being used on Threads.

@h_tejas Hmm. I don't like that.

@h_tejas !!!Zuckerberg!!!!

@h_tejas not surpsised same as wasnt surprised boast theirs numbers, its fb meta no matter name switch/cloak them highly unlikely gonna change with shady practices...

@h_tejas When Facebook was still coming up, I'd get "People you might know" e-mails trying to get me to sign up.

One of them suggested a guy whose daughter I dated in high school. I get how it works -- naturally a bunch of her old friends from back then would have searched for both me and him -- but it creeped me right the hell out.

Never did sign up for Facebook.

@h_tejas Threads users should expect shady shit from Meta at this point on.

@h_tejas My cats have an insta account. Neither me or them have a facebook. A few weeks ago I got a notification that one of their reels blew up on facebook. Nowhere did I consent that their stuff could be shared to facebook. This doesn’t surprise me at all. My cats are not surpised either.

@h_tejas I would venture a guess this is due to the "Follow everyone you follow on Instagram" feature that would require them to all have accounts to be subbed.

@h_tejas

I'm confused: what does "shadow account" mean?
Does such a shadow account scrape your data without your consent?