Threads will not "amplify" news on the platform to maintain positivity

Threads will not "amplify" news on the platform to maintain positivity

Meta’s Threads, considered to be the substitute for Twitter, now known as “X,” is perhaps taking a different approach than the Elon Musk-owned company in terms of the news posted on the platform.

According to a Threads post by Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, the platform is not “anti-news.” However, it takes a gentler approach when it comes to promoting news on Threads.

Mosseri replied to the original post by a Threads user who shared a recent interview by the company on promoting “hard news” on the platform. The user suggested that there had been a recent increase in news posts covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mosseri commented:

“We’re not anti-news. News is clearly already on Threads. People can share news; people can follow accounts that share news. We’re not going to get in the way of any either. But, we’re also not going go to amplify news on the platform. To do so would be too risky given the maturity of the platform, the downsides of over-promising, and the stakes.”

The interview, done by The Verge in September 2023, was with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who shared his views about competing with Twitter and what he plans to do with Threads. The interview, hence, presented Threads as a “more positive, friendly place for discussion.”

Zuckerberg mentioned that Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have inherently different nature of content. He stated that Instagram was based more on the happier side, Facebook had a more middleman approach with both types of content, and Twitter had a more “negative and critical” concept. He elaborated:

“... I think Twitter indexes very strongly on just being quite negative and critical. I think that that’s sort of the design. It’s not that the designers wanted to make people feel bad. I think they wanted to have a maximum kind of intense debate, right? Which I think that sort of creates a certain emotional feeling and load. I always just thought you could create a discussion experience that wasn’t quite so negative or toxic.”

This statement, followed by what Mosseri posted today, places Threads in a different position than Twitter. The company plans to focus on creating a more positive space without “amplifying” hard news. Thus, while users are still allowed to follow news channels and share and post news, customers will not be bombarded with negative stories every time they open the application.

Via The Verge and TechCrunch