How Threads’ Privacy Policy Compares to Twitter’s (and Its Rivals’)

Meta’s long-awaited Twitter Alternative is there, and it’s called subjects. The new social media app launches at a time when alternatives like Bluesky, Mastodon and Spill are vying for users unhappy with Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter’s user experience tariff limits and a rise in hate speech.

Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, so the company’s attempt to recreate an online experience similar to Twitter is likely to attract many commoners, lurkers, and nomadic shitposters. Meta is working on integrating threads as Part of the online Fediversea group of shared servers where users can interact across multiple platforms.

If you’re hesitant about giving your personal information to a company that’s being fined billions of dollars, that’s understandable. For those who are curious, here’s what we know about the service’s privacy policy, what information you provide when you sign up, and how that compares to information collected by other options.

subjects

Subjects (Android, Apple) may collect a variety of personal data that will remain associated with 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 data type collected by the Threads app. This may include, but is not limited to, your race, sexual orientation, pregnancy status and religion, and your biometric data.

Threads falls under the broader privacy policy that applies to Meta’s other social media platforms. Would you like to see the whole? You can Read it yourself here. However, there is a caveat. The app has a supplementary data protection declaration this is also worth reading. A notable detail from this document is that while you can deactivate your Threads account at any time, if you want to delete your Threads account completely, you must delete your Instagram.

Below is all the data collected by threads mentioned in the App Store. Do you have the Facebook or Instagram app on your phone? Keep in mind that this data collection by Meta is similar to the data these apps collect about you.

Android users don’t have to provide the same amount of rich data on the Google Play Store to try Threads. You have more control than Apple users because you can control exactly what personal data is shared with apps.

Data linked to you

Third party advertising:

• purchases (purchase history)
• financial information (Other financial information)
• Location (Precise location, rough location)
• contact information (Physical address, email address, name, phone number, other user contact information)
• contacts
• User Content (photos or videos, gameplay content, other user content)
• search history
• Browser history
• identifiers (User ID, Device ID)
• usage data (Product interaction, advertising data, other usage data)
• diagnosis (crash data, performance data, other diagnostic data)
• other data