Don’t join Threads, but join them
What Do You Hand Over When You Sign Up for Threads (Android, Apple)? A Privacy Policy Explains the Impact of Decentralized Social Media
Threads (Android, Apple) potentially collects a wide assortment of personal data that remains connected to you, based on the information available in Apple’s App Store, from your purchase history and physical address to your browsing history and health information. “Sensitive information” is also listed as a type of data collected by the Threads app. Some information this could include is your race, sexual orientation, pregnancy status, and religion as well as your biometric data.
Early data suggests as much: Threads, which is directly linked to users’ Instagram accounts, saw 10 million sign-ups in its first seven hours, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Meta thinks that Threads is the devil.
Meta claims that Threads will soon support ActivityPub, a descriptor that does not inspire confidence. The company has already spent years, for example, working on its longtime promise of default end-to-end encryption on Messenger. But incorporating decentralization into Threads, and specifically supporting ActivityPub, has reportedly been a core aspect of Meta’s vision for the app from the beginning. Meta has also already sketched out details of the plan in its supplemental privacy policy for Threads.
“The fact that large platforms are adopting ActivityPub is not only validation of the movement towards decentralized social media, but a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers. The CEO of Mastodon, Eugen Rochko, wrote in a post ahead of yesterday’s Thread’s launch that it put pressure on the platforms to provide better, less exploitative services.
It is understandable that you are hesitant to share your data with a company that is facing a billion dollar fine. For those who are curious, however, here’s what we know about the service’s privacy policy, what data you hand over when you sign up, and how it compares to the data collected by other options.
For Android users, the Google Play Store doesn’t require you to hand over the same amount of extensive data to try out Threads. Since you can modify what personal data is shared, you have more control than Apple users.
