Here's why you should think twice before joining Threads

Meta just launched its brand new social media app and the supposed Twitter killer has already attracted tens of millions of users. Here’s how the Threads launch went as well as a few concerning things you should know about the platform before you join up.

More than 10 million people joined Threads in the first seven hours of its launch, which was an extremely impressive feat for any budding social media app. The growth was driven mainly by the platform's ease of accessibility for those with an Instagram account. 

Creating a Threads account is as easy as the click of a button if you have Instagram and this customer acquisition strategy was almost certainly designed to help the app scale quickly to maximize its potential for success at a time when its rival is struggling. 

Threads has been billed as Twitter's main rival and unlike other competitors like Bluesky and Mastodon, Threads has a simple signup process that allows new users to create an account and populate their information directly from their Instagram account. 

The easy signup process has allowed the social media giant to quickly scale its new app very quickly and within the first few days 70 million people signed up for Threads, a number Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said was “way beyond our expectations.”

However, Zuckerberg may have been exaggerating since previous comments on where he hopes the social media platform will go revealed he’s planning on making Threads far bigger than Twitter, a situation that could prove quite concerning for owner Elon Musk. 

“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.” Zuckerberg posted to his Threads account just after its launch. 

Twitter currently has roughly 396.5 million users according to the independent statistics research group Statista and Threads is already closing in on that number quickly. 

Forbes reported Threads has now become the fastest-growing app in history with more than 100 million people across 100 countries joining the app within the first five days of its launch. But all of this success has come without the app being present in Europe.

Tight regulations and strict rules about data privacy in the European Union have stopped Meta from launching Threads in Europe according to Politico, which pointed to the EUs Digital Markets Act, legislation designed to stop tech companies harvesting user data. 

“The fact that Threads is still not available for EU citizens shows that EU regulation works... I hope Meta will make sure all rules are covered and complied with before opening up for EU citizens," Danish Social Democrat Christel Schaldemose explained. 

Here inlies the problem new users face when joining Meta’s newest social media app, Threads is just another tool for the company to monetize its user base through the harvesting of data collected after users have signed off on it in the download process. 

CBC News noted Meta’s privacy policy states that it is allowed to collect and share info on everything from a user's purchases and location to their contacts and search history, all things that should be concerning since users will never know how that data is shared. 

“If people are looking for an alternative to Twitter that respects their data privacy and right to civil discourse, they will have to keep searching,” Mark Weinstein, a social media and online privacy expert told CBC News about Meta’s new Twitter rival. 

"Similar to Meta's other products like Facebook and Instagram, it appears that Threads will earn revenue via data harvesting and surveillance capitalism," Weinstein continued. 

If you have any other Meta products then it's likely your data is already being harvested by the company and adding another app likely won’t make a big difference. But what could bother you is the difficulty in deleting your Threads account once it's been created without also deleting your Instagram account.