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Instagram’s Threads surpasses 100 million users
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Technology
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It creates shadow placeholder profiles. You need to "sign up" but it's more like activating your threads profile rather than making a new account since it uses the same account database as Instagram. When I joined, it let me follow all of the people I follow on Instagram, even though 95% of them didn't have a threads account. Instead it put them in a pending list, automatically following them once they sign into the app and activate their profile for the first time.
And the thing is they are reporting the number of shadow accounts they create. If I were a meta investor I would be looking for a class action right about now.
I don't think they are because if they were the number of accounts they report would be 1.4 billion and not 100 million.
You should remember that there's a lot of numbers between 0 and 1.4 billion - say, 100 million.
Why would they not pad their numbers if they cannot meaningfully be held accountable?
If padding with X users is projected to generate the most profit, then they are going to do just that.
I can't say whether or not they're lying about their numbers, just that they're definitely not reporting "shadow accounts" (Instagram accounts who haven't activated a Threads profile but can still be followed) as active users.
They are accountable to their board of directors though, just like when that IRL app was found to be padding their numbers with bots last month and shut down.