Instagram’s boss says Threads isn’t for news and politics

Instagram’s new Threads app “will do nothing to encourage politics and “hard news,” said Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in conversation threads Together of the verge Alex Heath.

The extra scrutiny, negativity and integrity risks that come with politics and hard news aren’t worth the “incremental engagement or revenue,” Mosseri wrote. “There are so many wonderful communities out there across sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc. to create a vibrant platform without the need to delve into politics or hard news.” (Mosseri’s strong point of view here probably comes from him running Facebook’s news feed.)

In recent years, Meta has distanced itself from news and politics. reduce the amount of political content Which users see on Facebook. Last year, it also dropped “News” from the name of its Facebook feed. The company also responded to a new Canadian law that would require it to pay for local news, by saying it would remove news from Facebook and Instagram in the country.

The goal is not to replace Twitter. The goal is to create a public square on Instagram for communities that never really adopted Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry space for conversation, but all in Twitter. No.

Still, it seems inevitable that politics and news will figure on Threads in some way, especially if politicians and journalists use the platform during the 2024 presidential election cycle. and instagram is working on a feed only for people you follow and a chronological feed, which, to me at least, should make threads a more useful place to find news. But it looks like Instagram won’t go out of its way to make Threads more Twitter-like — so don’t get your hopes up for some sort of thread-deck.