Meta has announced plans to roll out a separate account deletion for its social networking app Threads, by December.
Meta’s Chief Privacy Officer for product, Michel Protti said the company has been deliberating on how to tackle deletion requests at the beginning, noting that it was technically challenging to separate the two accounts at launch.
So the company decided to roll out tools that will enable users to set their account private, deactivate their account, and delete the Threads app.
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In his words,
“Technically, it was extremely challenging to allow deletion of a separate Threads account without also deleting your overall Instagram account out of the gate. So we paid particular attention to ensuring the user could still exercise their deletion rights, by deactivating the account to sort of hide all content, setting it to private, or deleting individual threads”.
Recall that Threads’ explosive growth during its launch in July this year positioned the platform as a high-profile alternative to Twitter, which saw the platform gain significant traction.
However, many users were later surprised at the discovery that deleting a Threads account also means deleting the associated Instagram account, as explained in Meta’s Supplemental Privacy Policy.
The rationale behind the account deletion requirement saw Meta disclose that the account deletion requirement is an integral part of the user’s Instagram account.
In other words, the company disclosed that Threads is deeply intertwined with the user’s Instagram presence, making the deletion of one dependent on the deletion of the other.
The revelation about the account deletion process stirred up mixed reactions from users.
A large percentage of users were disappointed by the lack of flexibility and control over their Threads presence, while others expressed concerns about the impact on their Instagram accounts, which hold separate values and connections.
After receiving users’ criticisms over Threads deletion policy, Instagram head Adam Mosseri clarified how account deletion would work. He said that users can deactivate their Threads account to hide their profile and content, also, they can set their profile to private or can delete all their individual Threads posts without deleting their Instagram account.
However, Mosseri added that the company was looking into a way for users to delete their Threads accounts separately.
Finally, the meta-owned social networking platform has today announced plans to roll out a separate account deletion by the end of the year.
This move by Meta would spur a balance between integration and user empowerment to ensure a positive user experience on both platforms.
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