Another day, another new social media app, and another way to trigger your anxiety levels.
Threads - Meta's new app that is pretty much Twitter, without all the Elon Musk douchebaggery (so far) - was released yesterday and has BLOWN UP.
In seven hours, it snagged a mind-blowing 10 million sign-ups and, as of 4 hours ago, ticked over 30 million. That's bonkers.
Hold up - what is Threads? It's basically a text-based conversation app, the "cool" alternative to Twitter. Meta CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg shared that he dreams of a "public conversations app" with a billion people on it (because the world really needs another platform for sharing random thoughts, right?) and also took a jab at Twitter, claiming they had their shot but missed the mark.
It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.
But, here's the kicker, and a reminder to always read the fine print. If you decide to bail on Threads, you have to say goodbye to your precious Instagram account too.
Uhhhhhhhh, what?
Meta, the evil geniuses behind Threads, explains it in their Supplemental Privacy Policy (aka the terms of use that you definitely didn't read). According to them, your Threads profile is directly connected with your Instagram account. So, if you want to delete one, you've got to delete both.
Cool, huh?
Obviously, that news kicked up quite the fuss once people found out, so much so that the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, had to issue a statement on Threads on how the account deletion would work.
Mossy says that you can deactivate your Threads account to hide your profile and content, set your profile to be public or private, and delete individual posts without causing your Instagram account to be deleted. But as of right now, the two apps are joined at the hip, so if you delete one, you delete the other. But they're "looking into a way to delete your Threads account separately".
Don't know about you, but that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence....
Are you on Threads? If so, give us a follow (is that the terminology? Hmmm) - we're called @theedgenz (duh).
