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Meta faced a wave of criticism when it shared plans to recommend less political content to users, but a new Threads feature may share this content if it is trending.
Meta appears to be taking a slight backtrack on its political content policies, as Threads is testing a new feature that will let users see political topics.
The company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that a “small test” is rolling out in the US for a Threads feature that shows some of the trending topics of the day. Zuckerberg said this feature will be brought to more countries and languages once it is “tuned up.
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri shared images of the feature, which looks similar to the trending section on X. He said this Today’s Topics feature will be on the Search page and in the For You feed. He also said it is designed to help users “find timely topics people are talking about”.
“The topics are determined by our AI systems based on what people are engaging with right now on Threads,” Mosseri said. “Our content specialists will review the topics selected by our AI systems to make sure they’re not duplicative or confusing, but by and large, we want them to accurately represent what is actually topical on Threads.”
Mosseri also said that political trends will be “eligible” for this section. Meta faced a wave of criticism earlier this week when it was revealed that upcoming changes would reduce the amount of political content Instagram and Threads show their users on sections such as Explore, Reels and Suggested Users.
At the time, Mosseri said users will be able to “opt in” if they still want political recommendations.
“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it,” Mosseri said on Threads. “These recommendations updates apply to public accounts and only in places where we recommend content.”
Some critics called the move an attempt to “throttle” political content, while others took issue with the decision being made ahead of an election year in the US. But Mosseri previously said that the goal of Threads was to create a place for those that are “interested in a less angry place for conversations” than X and that it would not focus on politics and hard news.
Threads was seen as a potential challenger to X when it first launched, with similar features and the same black and white style – X changed its look the same month that Threads launched.
But despite having a hugely successful launch, Threads’ user activity plummeted in a short space of time, as the X challenger has struggled to find its own identity in the crowded social media market.
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