Adam Mosseri says Threads will not “encourage” politics and “hard news” as such content brings scrutiny that isn't worth the “incremental engagement or revenue”

Adam Mosseri ran Facebook's News Feed in 2016, and now he tells Alex Heath that politics … See also Mediagazer

The Verge 2023-07-09 Jay Peters

Context & Ripple Effects

Threads’ early positioning treated political and hard-news distribution as a risk-management and monetization trade-off, rather than a core growth loop. That position was later reiterated as a refusal to amplify hard news because it was seen as too risky.

The stance subsequently became more explicit in recommendations policy: Meta said it would avoid proactively recommending political content from unfollowed accounts. A later move to add political-content recommendations and user controls shows this was an adjustable distribution setting, not necessarily a permanent exclusion.

First-order effects

Threads can deprioritize political and hard-news content in its recommendation and product decisions, reducing the platform-led reach available to accounts that depend on those topics.
Meta frames scrutiny associated with political and news distribution as a cost that outweighs the additional engagement or advertising revenue it expects from promoting it.

Second-order effects

Publishers, journalists, and political creators seeking discovery on Threads face weaker incentives to invest in platform-native output if recommendation systems do not actively extend their reach.
Threads’ effort to become a venue for broad public conversation must rely more on communities and non-news discussion, creating tension with its stated ambition to be a public-conversation platform.

Third-order effects

The episode points to social platforms treating politically sensitive distribution as a tunable recommendation-policy layer, balancing engagement against regulatory, safety, and reputational exposure.
If that pattern persists, news publishers’ audience strategies will become more dependent on direct follows and owned channels than on algorithmic discovery; Meta’s later political-controls shift suggests the balance can change with product and policy conditions.

The trend: Major social platforms are increasingly separating public conversation from algorithmic amplification of political news, using recommendation controls to manage the associated business and scrutiny trade-offs.

Discussion

@epro.social Emil Protalinski on bluesky
good luck with that [embedded post]
@howelloneill.bsky.social Patrick Howell O'Neill on bluesky
If the plain English translation of this = Threads current brand hellscape is the intended end state, count me out. But honestly, I feel like I have almost no idea what this actually means in terms of how Threads ends up. [embedded post]
@josephpolitano @josephpolitano on x
The Meta team is low-key roasting politics Twitter over on the other app [image]
@kausmickey Mickey Kaus on x
Tech journalist @cwarzel asks: Will Threads be a “Notes app for celebrities, where highly curated pop-culture news...travels [or] a place where activist movements start...where the messy nature of politics unfolds.” Think we know the answer to that now. https://www.theverge.com/.…
@saksithcna @saksithcna on x
This is pretty shortsighted. Underreported and underrepresented issues and parts of the world will always seek out new avenues and platforms in order to be heard. That's what the “public square” is for, too. It happened before and can happen again. https://twitter.com/...
@ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald on x
Corporate media's relentless censorship demands have made Big Tech companies conclude that it's not worth the misery, cost and accusations to host news reporting political discourse online. They destroyed one of the primary promises of the early internet. https://twitter.com/...
@rafat @rafat on x
Someone had to do this. Some brilliant one liners in here. Verdict: Threads is garbage: https://open.substack.com/...
@asteris Asteris Masouras on x
Meta doubling down on driving journalism off its products isn't a good thing, folks. It's practically an invitation to escalate disinfo. (And their logo for Threads looking like Ebola will never not look creepy.) https://twitter.com/...
@adamsinger Adam Singer on x
You will not post about politics or news. That's badspeak. Also being angry is not tolerated (why do they think we're angry?). Basically just talk about things our advertisers want to run ads against, it helps our revenue [image]
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Threads boss @mosseri posted that it won't “encourage” hard news or politics, which is in keeping with Meta's shift in recent years. Twitter could really lean into that as a defense shield, but it's complicated by Elon's antipathy toward the news media.
@davidclinchnews David Clinch on x
This is an unfortunate decision IMHO. I understand the reluctance to jump into politics, but there is a safe and curated way to do authoritative news on Threads, for at least the few top stories of the day. https://twitter.com/...
@om @om on x
@alex When celebrities and influencers drop their “news” it will be important and relevant for “journalists”
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
We are like 2 weeks from Threads banning a reporter, they've already censored Mehdi Hassan's video on RFK Jr., This network is going to be entirely meme accounts tweeting “food is soo good when hungry” and media accounts posting their stories for 30 clicks a piece [image]
@thestalwart Joe Weisenthal on x
This is disappointing. I was hoping that Instagram would build a product designed to serve one particularly aggrieved and resentful niche, rather than focus on building a big successful money making operation. https://twitter.com/...
@selviano Michael Selvidge on x
finally! a microblogging platform for Centrists! who says the world can't improve... https://twitter.com/...
@maxasteele Max Steele on x
.@broderick with another banger. On Threads: “It has no purpose. It is for no one. It launched as a content graveyard and will assuredly only become more of one over time. It's iFunny for people who miss The Ellen Show.” https://www.garbageday.email/ ... [image]
@loudmouthjulia Julia Alexander on x
So Threads is real-time Tumblr, but without the communities or vibes. Not promoting verticals that take advantage of text-based social media feels like something they should reconsider. Threads doesn't have to replace Twitter to facilitate conversation + encourage interaction. ht…
@parismarx Paris Marx on x
Instagram head Adam Mosseri says pretty conclusively they don't want Threads to be the new app for news and journalists. Makes sense given Meta is threatening to pull news in Canada and California. Ultimately, Threads is a sanitized space for brands, grifters, and commerce. [imag…
@jeffveillette Jeff Veillette on x
It is for the people who capture your attention on Instagram to sell you something in text form. They're going along with the “Twitter killer” talk to siphon a little more of an initial userbase, but that is the endgame here. The algorithm is the star and it's all a sales pitch h…
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
sad trombone.mp3 https://twitter.com/...
@martinsfp @martinsfp on x
That's up to the users, surely. https://twitter.com/...
@martinsfp @martinsfp on threads
Threads will be ‘for news’ if its users want that. Once it has a chronological feed, I'm not sure how you stop that. The design is better than Twitter when it comes to curbing toxicity, so it could...
@sarahfrier Sarah Frier on threads
Meta is super over the news industry, given their current regulatory experience & past attempts to partner. Advertisers don't want to be next to stuff that's not feel-good either. But this is a text...
@julesterpak Jules Terpak on threads
CEO of Instagram @mosseri says that though posts related to politics and news will be shared on Threads, the platform does not necessarily encourage those verticals I feel like that messaging is...
@b_fung @b_fung on threads
This is a perfectly reasonable take for a company that learned the hard way how being an intermediary naturally leads to people constantly trying to play the ref. He isn't saying news and politics have no place here. …
@alexhcranz Alex Cranz on threads
this is totally unsurprising given how badly meta got burned when it dealt with news in the past. i don't think anyone wants a president threatening nuclear war in their platform. but i don't think...
@reporterzoe Zoe Schiffer on threads
NPR quitting Twitter was a turning point in the story. Now the news organization is on Threads.
@mosseri Adam Mosseri on threads
It would be as ignorant to pretend politics and news won't come to a platform of scale as if would be to try to accelerate them doing so.
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on threads
This is basically TikTok's philosophy: discouraging news for its negativity ("last sunny corner of the internet"). People feel nervous to talk about the news there or they use coded “algospeak,” lest...
@mattnavarra Matt Navarra on threads
Surprising to hear Instagram boss not being interested in making threads a destination for news in the way Twitter has been. For me, having journalists and news media here is important if I'm ever...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on threads
All these tech companies want to be seen as places for fun, light, entertaining content but that's not what users want nor is it realistic! People of all walks of life want to be informed about the...
r/technology r on reddit
Threads isn't for news and politics, says Instagram's boss — Adam Mosseri ran Facebook's News Feed in 2016, and now he tells Alex Heath that politics …

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