Threads recently came out from Meta, who owns Instagram and Facebook. It’s intended to work like Twitter in terms of general interactions. However, set up is quite different, especially if you have an Instagram (IG) account, so here are a few things you might want to know .

 

Deactivating or Deleting Profile

You should know this before trying Threads, if you weren’t reading this after the fact. If you tried Threads and wanted to remove yourself after your look, you may have a slight problem. At this time, you can only deactivate your profile that could only have been created with an IG account, but you not delete the Threads profile alone! You can only delete it with your IG account! While it may seem that you’re not giving any more info by deactivating it anyway, I don’t think most people’s trust is there that this is true! If it were, what’s the problem with deleting it, even if Meta would hold the handle for you because you have your IG account and others can’t take it when they sign up? There’s probably something in that privacy agreement people never read when they sign up about fluid data within the Metaverse to be used across any platform, so just be aware!

 

Setup and (no worries about) protecting your name / brand

If you were OK with the deletion or deactivation policy on Threads and want to give it a go, here’s the first thing you’ll want to know.

1. If you have IG, your account name is in your IG name. In that sense, you can’t run out and get names like Taylor Swift or others. But in the same sense, others can’t get your name so you don’t have to sign up on Threads to protect your name or brand. Mind you, all the spam accounts purporting to be certain others will now get another chance to fool people on Threads after mostly failing on IG.
2. If you don’t have an IG account, then you need to set up an IG account to sign up at this time. How much you use of either is up to you.

 

Privacy settings

This needs to be explained first before some other features that may be more pressing on your mind are addressed.

• You can set your profile to be public, where everyone in Threads or online via a browser, can see your content and also follow you without your permission.
• Or you can set your profile to be private, where people have to get your permission to follow you, and only then can see your content.

 

Getting followers (automatic and manual)

Here’s where things get a little interesting, crazy and/or fun. Follow the logic scheme, if you can. Threads will connect all of your IG followers, as well as those you follow, automatically. Whether or not they carry through depends on some situations, starting first with those followers being on Threads. If they’re not, then you obviously can’t have them as a follower. However, the potential connection is already made so that when they join, or when you join if you’re the later one, the connection may be made pending several factors.

• To follow others you follow on IG, you can get Threads to connect to any available Threads accounts already activated. Those who have Public accounts, you’ll automatically follow them. Those who have Private accounts, Threads will request and they will decide. If you don’t want to follow everyone on IG, you can go through a list Threads has and pick which ones to follow on Threads. Some people will be very different on a Twitter like text platform than IG pic platform!
• For others to follow you, if you have a Public profile, they can be added automatically on Threads. If you have a Private profile, you’ll get requests from either Threads or the person, pending on how they chose to carry over their IG network to Threads, and you can decide to approve or not.
• For new followers and to follow new people, just like Twitter or IG. Search them or see them on feeds, comments, tags, etc. Go to their profile, and follow public profile or request to follow if private profile.

 

Twitter otherwise

Threads is generally like Twitter, otherwise. Enough in how it functions that I can see why Twitter wants to sue them. Of course, the culture, toxicity, fake news, content moderation (or seems to be lack thereof), etc. remains to be seen as they need to get developed by policy and those who are there. But that’s generally what I can tell, and what