Threads feed of people you follow ‘on the list’; can’t delete your profile; more

Twitter’s implosion has helped Threads get off to a great start, gaining 10M users in the first 10 hours. But the app’s rush to market has meant some surprising failings, the biggest being that you can’t have a Threads feed comprising only people you follow.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has responded to a request by tech videographer MKBHD, stating that this is “on the list” of improvements to come to the app …

Threads feed of people you follow

With Twitter, most people tend to switch between the For You and Following tabs, depending on whether you’re after a general sense of what’s going on in the world, or a more curated feed of the accounts you follow.

With Threads, however, there’s no equivalent of the Following feed. That might not matter in the first few days, when we’re still waiting for the platform to populate with all the people and brands we follow on Twitter, but is going to very quickly become a major weakness.

MKBHD posted his request on Threads.

As long as the big bosses are on here actively listening to feedback… a home feed just for people you follow would be [perfect emoji]

Mosseri, who said elsewhere that he’d been too busy to sleep last night, promised that the feature is coming, though gave no clue as to when.

On the list

Web view is read-only; no Mac app

While you can access Threads on the web, this is a very limited, read-only view.

You can’t reply, like a post, or even follow an account. Parent company Meta is clearly very keen to push everyone to the app – but the lack of a desktop app is currently a significant barrier for pro users.

Editing, translation, multiple accounts also coming

Mosseri has given the same reply to other requested features. The ability to edit threads was by far the most popular request on Twitter, and while the company dug in its heels for the longest time, it seems we might not have to wait so long to be able to edit Threads.

As The Verge notes, translation into other languages and support for multiple accounts are also “on the list.”

You can’t delete your Threads profile

Perhaps the most controversial decision we know of so far is that you can’t delete your Threads profile – without also deleting your Instagram account! This was noted by writer Emily Hughes.

I deactivated my threads account already but it turns out you can’t delete your threads account *without also deleting your Instagram account* so maybe just don’t sign up!

This is confirmed in the Threads Supplemental Privacy Policy.

You may deactivate your Threads profile at any time, but your Threads profile can only be deleted by deleting your Instagram account.

Meta told TechCrunch that this is because the company views a Threads profile as one element of an Instagram account, rather than a separate account.

This seems disingenuous, especially when it’s obvious to everyone that the only reason Meta chose to associate Threads so closely with Instagram was to enable painless sign-up.