Threads is flooded with recommended posts that border on the thin line between legality and illegality. This has become a problem for the app, according to Instagram’s director, Adam Mosseri, and the Threads team is working to solve it.
In a post on the social network, Mosseri points out that Threads users have been shown many contents that, while they may not be technically illegal, are close to it. A problem that the team is working to solve, while continuing to improve the platform, which is 6 months old.
However, the problem with this type of content that borders on the edge of legality is not new. Back in 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, provided a comprehensive overview of the current issues with content consumption, and how controversial content inevitably always gains more traction on social media.
According to Zuckerberg: “One of the biggest problems that social networks face is that, if not controlled, people interact disproportionately with the most sensationalist and provocative content. It is not a new phenomenon. It is widespread in cable news and has been a staple of tabloid press for over a century. On a large scale, it can undermine the quality of public discourse and lead to polarization. In our case, it can also degrade the quality of our services.”
Zuckerberg also pointed out that this is a difficult challenge to solve, because “no matter where we draw the lines of what is allowed, as content gets closer to that line, people will engage with it more on average, even when they later tell us they don’t like the content.”
Now, thanks to its rapid growth, Threads would be going through the same thing, with disinformation posts becoming more and more frequent. Will Threads become another Twitter where “cryptomendas”, scammers, and dropshippers roam freely, or will they manage to find a solution in time?
