Meta not disclosing which select creators it pays to post on Threads undermines trust in everyone's motivations, as users assume others are “engagement farming”
It was a useful program, and the archival has merit, but publishers argued that the Archive overstepped, and the courts eventually agreed. Threads: @katienotopoulos , @cotyrosenblath , @jenvalentino_nyt , @joanwestenberg , @willoremus , @willoremus , @mike_isaac , @scojjac , @shortformernie , @guillecummings , @jampacksam , @ben.werdmuller , and @ben.werdmuller Mastodon: @josemurilo@mato.social , @alterelefant@mastodontech.de , @CWSmith@social … , @shansterable@c.im , @BigAngBlack@fosstodon.org , @matt@oslo.town , @ernie@writing.exchange , and @ben@werd.social See also Mediagazer Threads: Katie Notopoulos / @katienotopoulos : Ssssh will don't give it away Coty Rosenblath / @cotyrosenblath : I thought it would be fun to play along in one of @katienotopoulos's posts. I thought that not long before starting an international flight. I was wrong and people were angry. I'm not built for having even complete strangers mistake me so. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries / @jenvalentino_nyt : My timeline is filling up with a bunch of tech journalists posting annoying Threads engagement bait to be funny. I'm sure this is temporary, so I don't want to unfollow these people, but it's driving me crazy. I don't know what to do about it. Does anyone have any ideas? Joan Westenberg / @joanwestenberg : Gonna start posting engagement bait questions and limiting the replies just to really fuck with the algorithm Will Oremus / @willoremus : as many have figured out, the easiest path to engagement on threads is to ask a question that has an obvious or easily-googled answer. better yet if you seem ignorant or wrongheaded in the process, so that people feel the need to correct you. you'll get tons of replies, which threads' algo interprets as a “conversation” worth amplifying Will Oremus / @willoremus : Sadly there seems to be no reliable way to get engagement from strangers on Threads and no good way to game the algorithm here. Has anyone found otherwise?? Mike Isaac / @mike_isaac : this sort of thing is why it's fun from a sort of digital anthropological standpoint to look at threads — hard to start a new social network these days and have it stick, but bc this instantly scaled we are seeing all the years people spent figuring out growth hacks across FB, YouTube, IG etc being instantly applied here the result is a bunch of garbage. … Scott Jaramillo Jack / @scojjac : Another instance where the Instagram connection is harming Threads. - paying IG influencers to post here - showing posts from here on Facebook and Instagram - surreptitiously cross-posting from Facebook to here - being connected by default to an Instagram account when people use the two apps VERY differently and often don't want them mixing (see recent Brazil Xodus) Ernie Smith / @shortformernie : Sometimes I wonder if I should just get off my nearly-three-month-old campaign where I ask @mosseri to add fediverse following capabilities to Threads, and post like a normal person. But then I see a post like @ben.werdmuller's and realize that Meta needs to bend Threads to the social norms of the rest of the internet, and not the other way around. https://werd.io/... @guillecummings : The bad part is who they are choosing to pay. Instead of giving threads bonuses to the people who helped build communities here, like NBAThreads which caused the NBA to become active on here, they are paying IG influencers who couldn't give AF about Threads. It's terrible. @jampacksam : The engagement farming accusations are always so strange to me. I think it's partly because most people on Threads even this early, a year and some change out from launch, are deeply tuned into the social landscape and weird ways people try to leverage platforms to get attention. … Ben Werdmüller / @ben.werdmuller : I mean, let me be totally clear: if they wanted to pay me $5K a post I would probably think about taking the money. And then not post any differently at all @ben.werdmuller : By secretly paying some creators to post on Threads, Meta is undermining trust in everyone's motivations. Suddenly everyone is assumed to be “engagement farming”: — https://werd.io/... Mastodon: @josemurilo@mato.social : Read that post! A measure of how different #socialmedia environments deal with #controversy. — “The #Threads algorithm apparently surfaced my post in the feeds of a bunch of other people with a wholly different set of interests, who were—inexplicably to me—incredibly angry that I hadn't provided any further context. … Frank Heijkamp / @alterelefant@mastodontech.de : @Theriac @matt @ben An identifiable IP-address is not even the worst thing. They fingerprint your device and can identify it throughout its lifetime. C.W. Smith / @CWSmith@social.mechanizedarmadillo.com : @ben — The question is though, is it any worse than the engagement farming that occurs on other platforms that monitize member content. — What is it compared to X, YouTube, Odysee, or Rumble? — And how big a problem is Engagement farming in general when you look at all monitize platforms as a whole? Shannon Skinner / @shansterable@c.im : @ben — Meta inserts Thread posts made by accounts that I don't follow into my Facebook feed. That tells me all I need to know about how great Threads is. — I don't even want to be on Facebook, except I check it for posts from family. … Ang Black / @BigAngBlack@fosstodon.org : @ben — “You're making this platform worse” Matt / @matt@oslo.town : @ben Influencers must disclose their advertising activities as required by #EU consumer law. 🇪🇺 — I wonder if being paid to use a social network falls within that and there's some law being broken here. 🤔 — https://commission.europa.eu/ ... Ernie Smith / @ernie@writing.exchange : @darwinwoodka @ben pooter1985's sense of entitlement in particular is infuriating. The way he treated you makes me want to argue with him, Ben. But I'm trying to stop myself. LOL. Ben Werdmuller / @ben@werd.social : By secretly paying some creators to post on Threads, Meta is undermining trust in everyone's motivations. Suddenly everyone is assumed to be “engagement farming”: https://werd.io/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Threads was already facing questions about what kind of participation it could sustain: coverage in July described difficulty attracting influencers to a text-first platform without a clear user purpose, while Meta had earlier acknowledged problems with low-quality recommendations. The reported lack of clarity around compensated posting therefore lands in an environment where users are already judging both content quality and contributors' incentives.
The criticism also exposes a tension in using Instagram-connected distribution to seed activity: it may boost visible posting while making it harder for users to distinguish community participation from paid promotion.
First-order effects
- The allegation puts Threads creators' motives under broader suspicion, including those not reported to be paid, and can make ordinary high-engagement posting look like engagement farming.
- Meta's creator-acquisition approach faces a credibility cost unless users can tell when a post is part of a compensated arrangement.
Second-order effects
- Creators and brands using Threads may face stronger pressure to disclose commercial relationships, particularly given the consumer-law concerns raised in the discussion.
- If users discount posts they perceive as incentivized, the platform's recommendation and cross-promotion systems may deliver less trusted engagement rather than simply more activity.
Third-order effects
- The episode points to disclosure becoming part of platform-quality infrastructure: as platforms subsidize supply, opaque incentives can erode confidence in the organic signals their feeds depend on.
- If this pattern persists, creator-payment programs may need clearer labeling and governance to avoid turning audience skepticism into a constraint on network growth.
The trend: Social platforms are increasingly learning that creator incentives and feed quality are inseparable from the trust users place in what appears to be organic participation.