[HN Gopher] Threads profiles can't be deleted without removing y...
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Threads profiles can't be deleted without removing your entire
Instagram account
Author : skoomer235
Score : 128 points
Date : 2023-07-06 19:32 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| nioj wrote:
| Ongoing discussion here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36612434
| alpark3 wrote:
| I just want a web client :(
| aslilac wrote:
| Doesn't look good that this is front page news fresh off the
| launch, lmao
| dontknowwhyihn wrote:
| This looks like it's purely about gaming signup metrics for
| Threads. Make it easy to try, create a huge disincentive to
| cancel, and suddenly you have a wildly successful, "sticky" app.
| happytiger wrote:
| Well it seems extremely unlikely to be an oversite I'll admit.
| ;)
| tenpies wrote:
| Next step "due to incredibly good reception, we are auto-
| creating a Thread account for anyone signed up in any of our
| other platforms - saving our users billions of minutes!".
| paganel wrote:
| Similar to the strategy for Google+ back in the day. It didn't
| work back then, big chances are it won't work now, either.
| threeseed wrote:
| Threads is being bootstrapped off an existing billion user
| social network and completely aligns to Meta's core values
| and business model.
|
| It's pretty much the complete opposite of Google+.
| paganel wrote:
| I'm saying that FB wouldn't have needed to resort to this
| lousy strategy if that "alignment" that you mention would
| have given them enough numbers all by itself.
|
| As such, adding a dying social-media activity ("short"
| texting) to a fading social-media property (IG) is also
| less than ideal for Meta the company.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I read a horror story on Slashdot about a user losing their
| Gmail account because of some issue on Google+ and that was
| it for me. I stayed away. My email account was too precious
| to risk.
| fswd wrote:
| my OpenAI API account got nuked due to a missing
| organization error when I switched clients one night. I
| just got an email back from their support... took them 2
| months. For reference, ChatGPT API has been out for only 3
| months.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Google+ was a product trying to break into a market where the
| market didn't really need another product. Threads is
| obviously looking to take up the mantle for where Twitter is
| dying, and people are actively looking for a Twitter
| replacement. So comparing Threads to G+ is just not a good
| comparison.
| smsm42 wrote:
| I wonder though why did they use IG platform and not FB platform?
| Has FB platform grown so bad that it can't be used for
| implementing new things anymore?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Too many people hate Facebook, while Instagram is still
| relatively cool.
| [deleted]
| threeseed wrote:
| Because Instagram is pseudo-anonymous and Facebook is not.
|
| They wanted Twitter users many of whom use pseudoynms to
| migrate across.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| FB and meta are both tarnished names. I've had non techies tell
| me that they are trying this "new twitter app from instagram"
| vs something made by meta.
| skilled wrote:
| Young people don't use FB as much as they do Instagram. They
| want hype not a grandma writing a Thread on how she misses the
| good old days.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Instagram has a better brand for this sort of thing.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Yeah definitely because FB brand is trashed. Instagram still
| has decent branding and many people don't even realize it's the
| same company.
|
| I also imagine their accounts infrastructure is more app-driven
| on Instagram and was easier to integrate into a new platform
| without inheriting ~20 years (wow!) of tech debt from FB.
| frankreyes wrote:
| Ah, that's why it doesn't work in Europe.
| jprd wrote:
| It's a trap!
| ezfe wrote:
| If you can deactivate your account, I don't see what the problem
| is - they're the same login after all so I don't see why it would
| be surprising that you can't delete the login to one without
| deleting the other.
|
| The purpose of deleting an account (versus deactivating) is to
| remove your records with that company so what would the purpose
| of deleting just a Threads account be?
| jjulius wrote:
| >The purpose of deleting an account (versus deactivating) is to
| remove your records with that company so what would the purpose
| of deleting just a Threads account be?
|
| ... to delete your records on Threads.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| To set "isDeleted" to true on Threads.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Not something more ambiguous like "nonPublished"?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I mean, you can't delete your account on Google Sheets but
| leave Google Docs intact.
|
| So it really depends on whether you think you have a separate
| Threads account, or just an Instagram account that Threads
| uses. It seems like the latter is the case though.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| It's not about the login details. It's about removing the
| content.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Following the same analogy, it's like removing
| spreadsheets from Google Sheets.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| it's currently possible to have an instagram account
| without a threads account, or at least without any threads
| content or presence, so it is current possible to go back
| to that state after creating the latter
| [deleted]
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36612434
| standardUser wrote:
| They obviously piggy-backed excessively off of Instagram and the
| limitations are very annoying (at least for now).
|
| I wonder how much of the decision to link Threads so tightly with
| Instagram was for technical reasons and speed to launch. Because
| I could also see them wanting to use their Instagram user base to
| seed the new app, as opposed to their older and probably more
| conservative Facebook user base.
| sockaddr wrote:
| Yup. It would have been an absolute minion-fest if they piped
| in the FB crowd.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| While all of that is true, the real reason is that Threads was
| actually an instagram feature several years ago that they
| previously killed off. They were able to bring it back quickly
| and make some changes to capitalize on twitter's meltdown.
| MilnerRoute wrote:
| "But Instagram is looking into changing that."
| davelondon wrote:
| Clearly this is just something they haven't got around to
| implementing yet.
| jachee wrote:
| Surely. I imagine it's just like their iPad apps. Should be
| here any day.
| slt2021 wrote:
| rule of thumb is never register with your name, always use
| throwaway emails and accounts.
|
| that way social media will never have leverage over you.
|
| threads app gathers more data than TikTok (
| https://twitter.com/deepaksonar911/status/167674841107126681... )
| mcculley wrote:
| Assume that these apps can deanonymize you. One would have to
| go to extreme lengths to not leak identity.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Agree but it is a lot of work to deanonimyze, when they
| already have people giving up all the data.
|
| At least I try not to be the lowest hanging fruit in
| deanonimyzation problem
| motoxpro wrote:
| What permission on that list in the tweet is unreasonable? They
| are all just features in the app.
| rvz wrote:
| Agreed with almost everything except for:
|
| > threads app gathers more data than TikTok
|
| Now you need a credible source for that claim. Not defending
| either of them but such claims require credible evidence.
| slt2021 wrote:
| This is basic hygiene when installing new App
|
| https://twitter.com/deepaksonar911/status/167674841107126681.
| ..
| amusingimpala75 wrote:
| Apple App Store or Google Play Store privacy listing for what
| data it can collect. It's mind boggling.
| paxys wrote:
| From what I have seen so far Threads seems to have been an
| incredibly rushed and premature launch, done directly to counter
| Twitter's missteps from the last few weeks. And the decision is
| proving to be the absolute correct one.
|
| What I don't understand is why Bluesky didn't seize the
| opportunity first. People were literally banging on their doors
| begging to be let in and they continued to go "sorry we are
| exclusive, invites only". Now no one gives a shit.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is the reason, but BlueSky doesn't appear
| to have a trust/safety moderation team that can operate at full
| scale. I mean, neither does twitter, but Jack understands that
| some people do want that. On the other hand, it's much easier
| for Meta to launch since they already have those people in
| place for Instagram and Facebook.
| threeseed wrote:
| Also given Jack's behaviour recently not sure how committed
| he is to trust/safety.
|
| He is definitely sympathetic to unfettered free speech and
| allowing misinformation to proliferate.
| Pufferbo wrote:
| I feel the same way. I read one thread where someone was
| praising the app's "refined" design. My first thought was,
| "What are they talking about. The UX is refined because there's
| literally nothing here". It's just one feature, the MVP,
| posts/replies.
|
| It would not surprise me if two weeks ago they were not
| planning on this release and t was only the recent drama that
| influenced them to release.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| Agreed. Bluesky had a tone of hype back in its infancy, and now
| you never hear about it. They definitely missed their
| opportunity.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Bluesky, even with all the hype, is very disappointing. Days
| go by before I see a new post. And they invited an odd bunch
| of unhinged, very-online people. It would do them better to
| have done more "normals" there.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| This is the opposite of my experience, my feeds refresh
| constantly. Are you just looking at just who you are
| following, or did you subscribe to any of the custom feeds
| like "What's Hot Classic" or "Gardening"?
| fortran77 wrote:
| I didn't subscribe to any feeds. Just the 100 or so
| people I follow. (I follow about 700 people on Twitter,
| with about 45,000 followers)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Still hear about it, but its either "No one is there" from
| people on it or "I can't get an invite" from people not.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| Mind boggling how even with prior knowledge and multiple
| opportunities, they replicated the Google plus mistake to
| the minutiae.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| I actually don't hate the idea but it's the rigid
| sticking to it that's the dumb part. The rate limiting
| clusterfuck was such a perfect opportunity to go "OK
| everyone here's a hundred invites valid for the next 48
| hours go wild". Still feels like a club since you have to
| get an invite and creates an impetus on users to get
| these invites sent out ASAP.
|
| I actually figured that this was the strategy, but now
| that they let that golden moment pass them by I now
| realise that nobody there has any idea what the fuck
| they're doing.
|
| Guess Jack just wants it to be a haven for all the worst
| blue checkmark behaviour of Twitter, in which case I
| commend him for creating a containment website.
| xwdv wrote:
| I finally got an invite code to Bluesky the other day.
|
| There is absolutely no content. Not as in "blank page nothing
| here" type of no content, I mean as in the "open the fridge,
| look around, and decide there's nothing to eat" type of no
| content.
|
| Meanwhile, Threads is content rich and there's already people I
| know posting cool stuff to see and interact with.
|
| The result, is that I don't give a fuck about Bluesky, and I'm
| not going to bother spreading invite codes.
|
| If I get at least 20 upvotes on this comment though maybe I'll
| consider it since it means the interest is there.
| tshaddox wrote:
| A social network being invite-only is such an obvious non-
| starter that I genuinely can't imagine the conversation that
| went into that decision. Assuming the basic underlying tech
| works more often that not (and ideally some story for community
| moderation), there's literally nothing I want from a Twitter
| competitor other than _having everyone on it_. My interest in a
| Twitter competitor that is invite-only is and will always be
| exactly zero.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Gmail's initial period was brilliant from a social network
| period before social networks. After the initial beta phase,
| once the bugs were worked out, it was invite only from
| existing Gmail users
| paxys wrote:
| Difference is that email doesn't have any network lock-in.
| If I'm the only one with a gmail.com account I'm the cool
| kid who can email everyone still on hotmail and yahoo to
| make them jealous, and now they want an invite as well. If
| I'm the only one with a bluesky account then I'm
| just...shouting into the void and no one cares.
| toast0 wrote:
| I feel like there's some room for an invite-only period
| that's useful, but it needs to be short. Unless you've
| somehow got an amazingly complete test suite, you're likely
| to run into scaling problems and show stopper bugs with early
| users, and limiting user count temporarily allows you to see
| and fix some of those before you become known for your
| failure conditions. But you also don't want to linger in
| invite-only, and lose the hype. IMHO, maybe 2-6 weeks of
| invite only is fine.
| Groxx wrote:
| It works extremely well - it guarantees you know* someone on
| the _social_ network. No empty feeds, no literally-no-one to
| talk at, etc.
|
| Speaking from experience working on a social site with loads
| of signup flow experiments: the results are consistently
| _wild_. It 's no competition on all the normally-valued
| metrics like interactions and retention.
|
| *for some degree of "know" anyway. Better in most cases than
| "the news talked about this tweeter thing"
| motoxpro wrote:
| Great great point
| dmonitor wrote:
| It's actually crazy how slow bluesky's rollout has been. I can
| see why they want some level of exclusivity (so that people
| _want_ to join, and when they join can immediately hook up with
| their friend who invited them), but they really need to open
| the faucet a bit.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Surprise! 30 million people wanted to join BlueSky because
| they wanted a twitter alternative that wasn't filled with
| hate fill toxic weirdo's. Now Meta's got em. 4D chess move
| there guys.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I've seen the belief that Google Plus failed because of the
| long invite-only limited access period repeated here many times
| - if that theory is correct, Bluesky seems to be making the
| exact same mistake with their launch.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Google Plus (invite only) failed in a similar way.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Did it? I've not seen any updates on the lawsuits that claim
| that Facebook and Google colluded but I could have easily
| missed something.
| Solvency wrote:
| Why has everyone on here been comparing Threads to Twitter when
| threads.com _literally_ says its a Slack alternative for
| _makers_? The product has absolutely nothing to do with a
| Twitter style social network.
|
| Edit: lol so FAANG just steals any and all actively used
| product names now. Got it.
| delive wrote:
| The social app uses .net - Threads.net
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Instagram Threads was a (different) thing back in 2019:
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/26/20833903/facebook-
| instagr.... Threads.com looks like it came out in 2022?
| threeseed wrote:
| a) Meta Threads which is unrelated to Meta, Threads or apps
| is trademarked in May, 2018. [1]
|
| b) Threads.com raises Seed round back in Oct, 2018. [2]
|
| c) Meta acquires Meta Threads trademark in Nov, 2021.
|
| d) Threads as a trademark itself has been widely used well
| before Threads.com. [3]
|
| [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/threads-
| aa50/company...
|
| [2] https://trademarks.justia.com/878/42/meta-87842532.html
|
| [3] https://trademarks.justia.com/search?q=threads
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Not sure how A C, D are relevant, trademarks pertain only
| to a specific category. Meta Threads was trademarked for
| luggage and backpacks. It'll be interesting to see if
| threads.com has a trademark.
| threeseed wrote:
| It's more just interesting history.
|
| But D is relevant because of course trademarks are highly
| specific to a category.
|
| And so Threads (social network) would be considered
| different to Threads (business chat).
| shmde wrote:
| Threads.com != Threads( twitter clone ) by meta
| cmcaleer wrote:
| A company the size of Facebook can release a new product
| that they're trying to eat Twitter's lunch with and not
| even buy the dot-com? Crazy.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I think it is branded as Threads by Instagram.
|
| One Google Play Store, Threads the chat app has "not
| affiliated with Threads by Instagram" in their listing. I
| wonder if they are getting lots of downloads by confused
| people.
| fullshark wrote:
| We'll never know if Elon would have shot himself more in the
| foot though without a clear competitive threat. Maybe some more
| time would have paid off? Though I agree that rate limiting +
| need to be signed in catastrophe over July 4 weekend seemed to
| be the sweet spot.
| patoroco wrote:
| The reason for not entering in the EU?
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Oh no, I can't delete my account with one day of posting history.
| So what? And you can only use your Instagram username anyway, so
| it's not like you can say you accidentally picked an embarrassing
| name and want to delete it.
| unboxingelf wrote:
| just facebook doing facebook things.
| MilnerRoute wrote:
| Instagram head of content posted on Threads:
|
| "To clarify, you can deactivate your Threads account, which hides
| your Threads profile and content, you can set your profile to
| private, and you can delete individual threads posts - all
| without deleting your Instagram account. Threads is powered by
| Instagram, so right now it's just one account, but we're looking
| into a way to delete your Threads account separately."
| metalliqaz wrote:
| sounds reasonable TBH
| brewdad wrote:
| Depends on if they are looking into it or "looking into it"
| the same way I might buy a private island in the South
| Pacific.
| smcf wrote:
| I don't have an Instagram account so I tried to create one to try
| Threads. I used my real name and phone number but it was
| instantly banned as soon as it was created. I submitted an
| appeal, which required a selfie taken while holding a piece of
| paper with my username on it, which I provided. The next day I
| got an automated email that the selfie wasn't "acceptable" (no
| further elaboration) and that I was permanently banned from
| Instagram with no route for further appeal. So overall, not the
| most seamless onboarding experience I've ever seen.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| When I signed up for Twitter I had something similar happen.
| Banned for life by an automated system, probably because I was
| using a vpn, with no option to appeal
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