Your Posts on Threads May End Up on Facebook

There was a small hope that Threads would become a pre-Elon Musk, Twitter-like social media hub that offered better protections for its users. But then you remember that the parent company of Threads is Meta (home to Facebook), and you realize it’s just going to be something else that impinges on your privacy and mental health.

Today’s lesson? What you’re posting on Threads is not only going to Instagram (which we’ve noticed) but also Facebook — meaning some thoughts you had that might have been more selective in their reach are now public fodder for your forgotten network of friends and family on FB.

The One Missing Feature That Prevents Threads from Being a “Twitter Killer”

Meta’s new social media app needs to copy one very specific element of Twitter

Per TechCrunch, Meta is showing Facebook users a “For You from Threads” section on the news feed that contains recommended content from, well, Threads. It’s also doing the same thing on Instagram. If there was a button to share across platforms and the default was “not share,” sure, fine. But as of now, there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop this unwanted cross-promotion.

“We have added a number of new features to the app since launch and are now making it easier for people to see the latest content from Threads directly on Facebook,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch.

We use different social media platforms to get across different points. What you post on Threads is not necessarily what you want to end up on Facebook or Instagram, particularly as those apps have different use cases. Meta has been fairly slow about bringing much-needed updates to its Twitter/X competitor, though adding an edit button this week was nice. Hopefully, the chance to easily opt out of this oversharing is on their to-do list.