Meta, the tech giant behind the social media platform Threads, has announced that the long-awaited account deletion tool will be available in December.
Thread users can’t just delete their accounts like they can on Facebook or X. In doing so, they risked having their Instagram account deleted.
Launched in July, the platform quickly gained many users, making it the fastest-growing platform in the same month it came out, beating Open AI’s ChatGPT. It was a big deal that 100 million people signed up in just five days.
Read also: Threads App blocks searches for ‘coronavirus, vaccines
But the site has been criticized for some of the things it offers. People complained that they couldn’t delete their accounts without deleting their Instagram page. Luckily, Michel Protti, Meta’s Chief Privacy Officer for products, confirmed that the company was working on a delete tool.
Even though Threads and Instagram are different sites, they are still connected. Protti said, “Technically, it was tough to let people delete a separate Threads account without also deleting their whole Instagram account.”
Even though users can’t delete their accounts, Protti said they can look into other options like deactivating them, making them secret, or removing individual threads or posts.
The progress of Thread
Even though Threads went into a space dominated by X and newcomers like Bluesky, its start made a lasting mark on social media. Even though it beat a hot product like ChatGPT regarding how many people signed up for it quickly, it soon saw a significant drop in users. The number of regular users on the site dropped to 23.6 million two months ago. This is a drop of nearly 50%.
This is mainly because when the product came out, it was missing a few essential features. Soon after this happened, Meta said it would make a PC version. The version for the web is now live.
Meta released a set of new features a month ago, including the ability to post on Instagram Direct Messages, the ability to change the custom alt text for videos and photos, and the ability to mention a profile. Threads recently said that it plans to add search, which is one of the most essential features of social media platforms.
With a real “delete account” feature coming in December, Threads again shows that it wants to be a big player. It already has to compete with X, which has more people and an owner who likes to try new things. It will be interesting to see how Meta’s new social media site does before its first birthday.