it's true that they have shadow accounts for Instagram accounts cause threads is currently operating under Instagram, I don't know if that's factored into their 30 million user count tho
When you follow one of the shadow accounts it says something like "they'll respond when they join threads" or something
It's true. As people who I follow on Instagram have started to sign up for Threads it has notified me that we're following each other. There's an option when you sign up to allow it to do that. And if you set up a private account, then you still have to approve people who follow you. But this way, you don't have to worry about remembering to check if someone has signed up yet after you sign up.
I have two Instagram accounts and I created a Threads account on one. Searched for the other and there’s nothing I can find for it. Definitely can’t follow the second account on Threads.
I’m not trying to be a Meta apologist here. I trust them about as far as I can throw a car (especially given the insane amount of data collection mentioned in the App/Play Stores) but in my limited test I don’t see a way to follow an account until you activate it on Threads