Will Meta's Threads be a platform of news and politics? Instagram boss replies
Meta has distanced itself from news and political content in recent years, and has reduced the amount of political content seen by users on Facebook.
Instagram's new app ‘Threads’ has become a huge hit on the internet and registered 70 million users within days of launch. The text-based platform has been touted as the challenger to Twitter. But there is one question which everyone has been asking: Will the Meta-owned Threads be also a platform for hard news and politics?Instagram boss Adam Mosseri in a Threads conversation with tech website The Verge said the platform won't do anything to encourage politics and hard news.“Politics and hard news are important, I don't want to imply otherwise. But my take is, from a platform's perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue they might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let's be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them. There are more than enough amazing communities – sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc – to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news”, Mosseri wrote on Threads.Meta has distanced itself from news and political content in recent years, and has reduced the amount of political content seen by users on Facebook.
In 2021, Meta in a post said it continues to test and refine its approach to political content on Facebook.
Meta had said less than three per cent of what people see on their Feed is political content, and added that the goal is to ensure people see what's most important to them.
Last year, Meta had dropped ‘News’ from the name of Facebook Feed last year. It responded to a new Canadian law requiring to pay for local news.
“We won't discourage or down-rank news or politics, we just won't court them the way we have in the past. If we are honest, we were too quick to promise too much to the industry on Facebook in the early 2010s, and it would be a mistake to repeat that...” Mosseri added.Threads faces Twitter legal actionTwitter has been fuming at the launch of Threads, and has accused Meta of stealing trade secrets and hired ex-Twitter employees to build a ‘copycat’ app. “Competition is fine, cheating is not”, the microblogging platform's boss Elon Musk has tweeted.
