This is only the tip of the iceberg, there are far more in the app’s listing.
Twitter has a lot of competition. Mastodon is a microblogging service that allows users to find servers with community, rules, and protections they find desirable. Bluesky is a startup founded by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, distributed, but with less focus on moderation rules between servers and more focus on… crypto. Meanwhile, Meta, parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, wants to get into the game. They’re doing so with their upcoming app, Threads, an Instagram App. You can pre-download the app now on the App Store for iOS. You just have to agree to hand over a little bit of personal data. Just contact info, user content, usage data… financial info, purchases, search history, and your health and fitness data, “sensitive info,” your physical address, plus… well, a lot more.
What? Oh, like your life is so private that you don’t want to share your health data, which could include your menstrual cycle, with Meta/Facebook? Your finances can’t be that interesting, can they?
Oh, you don’t feel comfortable with all of that?
Perhaps Threads won’t be right for you, weirdo. Personally, I look forward to allowing Meta to have access to my medications, my exercise for the day, all of my purchases, and definitely my browsing history. It’s papa Meta, what have I got to hide?
Yeah, obviously that’s a joke.
No EU Launch Due to Privacy
Meta won’t release their Threads, an Instagram app in the EU. Europe has the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has been a thorn in Meta’s side before. These laws protect consumer privacy online, and allow them access to their data, allowed to request that a site deletes all data they have on a user. Have you seen a website that asked you if it could store cookies? That’s because the the GDPR. The regulation protects Europeans wherever they are, so even if you’re in the U.S., websites tend to play it safe by asking everyone. Meta hasn’t been so careful. The most recent fine against Meta was the highest in EU history, €1.2 billion. In just 2022, EU regulators hit Meta with four separate fines.
It seems Meta isn’t ready to bring their ‘Twitter, but by the people who brought you Facebook’ app to nations that protect their citizens. They may struggle to explain why they need data points like health data for the product itself, or perhaps they ran afoul regulations about sharing data between services. The EU may not let Meta just gobble up whatever private data it wants, like the U.S. allows.
This Isn’t New
Meta’s other apps aren’t bastions of privacy either. Meta’s business model is collecting your personal information to sell ads. That’s it. The more information they can gather on you, the more they can sell you successful ads, and the more money they make. Everything else is just about getting your data. Instagram already has a permissions list that looks a lot like Thread’s. They want your location, your health data, all the photos on your phone, information about connected devices, and far more. If you want to get another Meta app, you’ll have to be prepared to find new ways to protect your data, and understand that the only reason Meta would release a new app is to get more data on you.
Facebook became a multi-billion dollar company by invading your privacy. They bought other companies to expand their reach. They re-named themselves to Meta likely to avoid some of the poor perception the “Facebook” brand had. With Meta, you’re getting exactly what you signed up for, a pretty interface over an app designed to grab your data.
Protect Your Permissions Carefully
You can safeguard your permissions, though Meta (Facebook) has been sneaky about getting around them. The best thing to do is not install any of Meta’s apps at all. Personally, I use the DuckDuckGo browser to view Facebook on mobile. That’s the only thing I use that browser for, giving Facebook very little access to my data. But, I am ashamed to admit I still have the Instagram app installed. To make up for that, I limit permissions on the app as much as I reasonably can. You can do this on iOS by going to Settings -> Instagram. Then turn off access to things like location, your contacts, the camera, whatever you need to turn off to feel safe with Instagram on your phone. You can also set photos to only show “Selected Photos.” This will prevent Instagram from being able to look through all of your photos.
It’s a bit more difficult on Android, but I assume most Android users would rather not think about privacy very much. Google scraps data from Android users down to predicting where they’ll be at any given time based on their location history. This will be different based on your manufacturer, however, on the Google Pixel devices, you can go into Settings -> Apps -> See all apps -> Instagram. Then, just like on iOS, you can scroll through and select the permissions you’d rather they not have. The same will be true for Threads by Instagram, you’ll just have to go to the “Threads, an Instagram App” section instead.
Of course, your best bet for privacy would be just to use Mastodon for your Twitter replacement. I mean, look at the permissions Mastodon uses in these official and third party apps:
Yeah, maybe it’s time you found a social network built for people, by people, a network with moderation you can choose, with privacy built in, and with safety built into its very architecture… instead of something made to rake in billions by selling your privacy. Meta has announced that they intend to link Threads to the “Fediverse,” the loosely connected federated servers that social networks like Mastodon and kbin are based on. However, Mastodon users have protested, and a number of popular instances have pledged to block Meta’s intrusion into the space to protect their users’ privacy. That’s the beauty of Mastodon and other Fediverse apps, they can better control privacy and rules, and you can easily switch instances to suit your needs, like your need for privacy from Meta’s greedy data grabbing.
Sources:
- Siôn Geschwindt, The Next Web
- Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch
- Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac