Meta’s Threads is the latest social-media platform to move away from news
Read all about it… somewhere else. Meta’s text-based app Threads won’t “amplify” news on the platform, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said. Threads, which hasn’t been shy about saying it doesn’t want to be a news hub, got 100M users in five days when it launched this summer (some saw it as an alternative to X). Now, its daily user count has plunged 80% from its peak — and some blame Threads’ lack of news.
Moderation snare: This week the EU warned Meta that failing to remove pro-Hamas content could violate the bloc’s new moderation rules, resulting in heavy fines. Users looking for war updates on social have had to navigate through loads of misinfo, old footage, and video-game clips.
Ad squeeze: Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for Threads was to be a positive space. By remaining mostly brand-safe with less real (and “fake”) news, Meta could pull more ad revenue away from flailing rival X.
Searching: Last month, Threads blocked searches for keywords like “Covid” and “vaccines” as cases rose in the US.
Social’s Thanksgiving-dinner moment… Social giants are starting to find that news isn’t worth the hassle, even though it can drive engagement. Last week, X stripped headlines from news links (though not for paid ads). Meta pulled news from Instagram and Facebook in Canada this summer (after the country passed a media-content-fee law) and it axed its Facebook News tab in the UK, France, and Germany. With the exception of TikTok and Insta, social media has broadly declined as a regular news source for American adults.
When the going gets tough, bail… Meta and some of its rivals are leaving news behind as regulators worldwide crack down on misinfo and pressure Big Tech to pay publishers for content. Plus, as social ad spend wavers, tech titans are searching for ways to make their platforms more advertiser-friendly (read: less toxic).