To enhance user experience, Meta has announced plans for a significant update to its text-based network, Threads. After facing user criticism earlier this year, the tech giant is preparing to roll out a separate account deletion feature for Threads by December. Users can soon delete their Threads account without deleting their associated Instagram account. Now, you can deactivate the Threads account only.
Meta has announced its plans to roll out a separate account deletion feature for Threads by December, addressing user concerns.
Addressing Technical Challenges
Meta’s Chief Privacy Officer for Product, Michel Protti, shed light on the issue at TechCrunch Disrupt. He shared that the company encountered significant technical challenges separating Threads and Instagram accounts at launch. This led to the initial solution of offering users tools such as account deactivation and privacy settings to manage their Threads account.
“The technical challenges of allowing for the deletion of a separate Threads account without also deleting the associated Instagram account were considerable. We focused on ensuring users could still exercise their deletion rights by deactivating the account to hide all content, setting the account to private, or deleting individual threads,” Protti explained.
Meta’s Future Plans for Threads
As well as working on the separate account deletion feature, Protti mentioned that Meta is also considering how Threads can be integrated with the broader social media ecosystem, the fediverse. In particular, the company examines what happens when a Threads post is shared on another server and then deleted by the author.
Threads Popularity Dwindles
Despite reaching the 100 million sign-up mark shortly after its launch in July, Threads has seen a decline in user engagement in recent months. Even though the platform has introduced features such as a following feed, a web app, and a full-text search, it has struggled to maintain the level of engagement Meta had hoped for. The platform currently has 23.7 million monthly active users in the U.S., ranking below Reddit and Twitter’s user base.
“We need to roll out better recommendations for accounts, make messaging easier, and build an edit button for posts,” said Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, in a recent AMA on Instagram Stories, highlighting the company’s plans for improving user engagement.