Since its release on Wednesday, Meta’s new text-based social media platform Threads has attracted over 22 million users who can only access it through their existing Instagram accounts. However, if you decide to delete your Threads account, you’ll need to think twice due to the potential consequences.
Deleting your Threads account will result in the deletion of your entire Instagram account.
According to Meta’s “Supplemental Privacy Policy,” while you can deactivate your Threads profile at any time, deleting your Instagram account is the only way to permanently delete your Threads profile.
Meta clarifies that a Threads profile is an integral part of the user’s Instagram account.
This policy from the social media giant has surprised many users and could anger some, potentially dissuading them from choosing Threads as an alternative to Twitter.
Threads currently poses the biggest competition to Elon Musk’s Twitter, which he acquired for $44 billion last year.
Although other challengers to Twitter have emerged, none have gained as many users as Threads.
The app was made available to the public in 100 countries on Wednesday at 7:00 pm EDT and will not display ads temporarily.
Instagram, the immensely popular photo-sharing app with over 2 billion users, is closely linked to Threads.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, wrote on his official Threads account on Thursday, “10 million sign-ups in seven hours.”
Accounts for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Hugh Jackman, and media outlets like The Washington Post and The Economist were already active on Threads.
During the platform’s launch, the CEO of Meta personally responded to new users.
In a reply to American MMA fighter Jon Jones, Zuckerberg wrote, “One thing that’s up is the number of world champion MMA fighters on Threads, especially now that you’re here!”
“It’s off to a good start for round one,” he added in another response.
Zuckerberg made his first tweet in over a decade, sharing a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme, seemingly highlighting the similarity between the two platforms.
On Threads, he stated, “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 to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully, we will.”
