Threads, you say? The Dane Cook of social media???
(Shout out to the Archer fans out there who got that obscure joke)
If you’ve been on Instagram over the past year, you’ve no doubt seen some profiles sporting that strange, extra squiggly looking @ symbol and perhaps you’ve even accidentally waded into Meta’s head-scratching approach to microblogging (think Twitter. yes I know it’s X, no one cares).
That little symbol on a persons Insta serves as a gateway to Threads.net and while you may have ignored it in the past, I’m going to tell you several really important reasons you’ll want to make is a part of your next SOCMINT adventure. I won’t be taking the time to fully break down the platform for you, apologies to everyone who anxiously awaits my next long-winded blog post (hi mom). For this write-up, it’s just the hits.
Clicking on the Threads icon on an Instagram profile will take you to a page that looks something like this, without requiring login to access:
Tip #1: Just because you don’t see the @ symbol linked on an Instagram profile, doesn’t mean the user doesn’t have Threads.
That’s right! Users need not link to Threads on their Instagram profile, and I’m finding more and more that users do in fact have a Threads account, yet nothing is shown on their IG. Now I check for Threads every time I see an IG account. This revelation is more important than you might realize. (More on why in the following tips)
So how do we get there when no link exists? The simple way is to append the Instagram username to the following URL:
https://threads.net/@___________________Not simple enough for you? Ok fine, in the true spirit of Midwest Nice, I went ahead and made a push-button solution for you, a simple bookmarklet you can place in your browsers bookmark bar and click any time you’re on an Instagram profile. This will grab the IG username and open a Threads tab to check for the presence of an account there for you at the push of a button.
You’re welcome, and I’d better see a 2 finger steering-wheel wave out of you if we ever pass each other on a gravel road someday.
Access the bookmarklet and instructions for using it, alongside our library of other awesome OSINT bookmarklets at https://tools.myosint.training OR copy and paste the below code into a bookmark you add to your browser:
javascript:(function(){var url=window.location.href;if(url.includes("instagram.com/")){var username=url.split("instagram.com/")[1].split("/")[0];var newUrl="https://threads.net/@"+username;window.open(newUrl,"_blank");}else{alert("This is not an Instagram page.");}})();Tip #2: Despite sharing the same username as the person’s IG profile, Threads DOES NOT have to have the same pic or bio.
This is big! Those of you conducing online research know that it can be the smallest digital breadcrumb that breaks open your investigation. User supplied information is the centerpiece of successful pivoting, and knowing there’s another bio hiding on Threads can be an absolute game changer and in some cases, can help with validating that you have the right user on Insta, when that profile was set to private.
On top of all this, when an Instagram profile photo doesn’t reveal anything useful, there might be a much more helpful photo just a click away in Threads. Like here:
Bonus tip for you…
Wondering how you can easily access the full Instagram profile photo without having to right click on the page, Inspect, and work your way around the source code? We’ve got a free bookmarklet for that too! One click and the profile photo, in full size, is opened in a new tab enabling you to save it.
Tip #3: Follower/following lists on Threads are set to public by default, regardless of the person’s Instagram privacy settings.
These days more and more I run into private Instagram accounts where the follower/following lists are not clickable and therefore not searchable. Threads, on the other had, I’ve found to be most often public. Being able to examine the connections to someone’s social media account is a HUGE benefit for our investigations. I could probably write a whole blog just on different stories of times where a public list of connections opened otherwise completely unfindable doors.
Now, follower/following lists on Threads are not apples to apples vs a user’s Instagram follower/following, of course. I consider the Threads connections to be (mostly) a subset of the person’s IG connections. Here I’m making an inference, but what this allows me to do is pivot off to other users on the Instagram platform who may have more publicly available profile info or have more uncommon names, making my subject’s circle of friends and family more easy to find on other platforms. And in the absence of public access to IG followers, well I’ll take anything I can get. There’s an art to this, my friends!
Bonus tip for you…
When an IG follower/following list is publicly viewable, remember that the accounts appear in the order they were added, meaning the first account followed is all the way at the bottom. Why is this important? Well, when I’m looking for someone’s 2nd, 3rd, or beyond social media account, or when I need to find a more current account for someone and only have an old one… knowing who they first followed can give me a short list of accounts who may be important enough in my subject’s life that any additional accounts they might have would also follow some of those same people.
Oh, I do need to add at least 1 disappointing thing, lest the internet trolls come complaining in the comments… In order to view the follower/following lists on Threads, you do have to be logged in. The rest of what I mentioned is all wide open, at least for now. One thing you can ALWAYS count on with Meta is that something on their platforms will change, the moment you start to like it.
That’s it for this one. Sorry for the long delays between blogs, but hopefully you’ve caught some of the other OSINT community things I’ve been doing these days. Never enough hours in the day (he says, while writing a hobby blog in the middle of the night).