Meta’s Revised Political Content Approach Could Benefit Threads

So, Meta’s cool with political content again, with the company looking to realign its moderation approach around free speech, enabling users to discuss a broader spectrum of topics, without fear of restriction, in its apps.

Today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also announced that Meta will switch to a Community Notes style model, which will put more control into the hands of its user communities to decide what is and is not acceptable in its apps.

Which is likely to be a disaster, in terms of facilitating the spread of misinformation and false claims (based on X’s experience), though it could also provide a boost for Threads, Meta’s Twitter-like real-time social app.

One of the most restrictive elements of Threads thus far has been the limitations on what gets reach, and what doesn’t, with Meta actively limiting whatever it deems to be “political” content.

Indeed, in February last year, Threads rolled out a political content toggle, which is switched on by default:

And if you don’t explicitly turn this off, Threads’ recommendation systems limit your exposure to content and profiles related to political topics.

Which was in line with Meta’s broader approach in reducing the influence of political discussion in its app, though it’s never actually explained that qualifies as “political” in this context, and how it’s looking to re-shape conversation in the app in a more positive way, by avoiding certain kinds of speech.

Regardless, on Election Day last year, it was clear that Threads was not the best app for staying up to date with the latest news.

Many users switched back to X instead to keep up with the latest news, while Bluesky suddenly saw a surge in interest, as people became acutely aware of the restrictions that Meta had put in place to limit political exposure.

I mean, when the election is happening, and the top “Trending” story on Threads is cute dogs, it’s probably not serving its purpose, or at least, the purpose that Twitter exiles might expect.

The subsequent rise of Bluesky prompted a flurry of activity at Threads HQ to replicate Bluesky’s features, while Threads has also been surveying users on its political content restrictions, and whether they would prefer a more hands-off approach.

And now, with Meta looking to better align with the incoming Trump administration, and address concerns around political censorship, Threads is going to be free to showcase more political content anyway, which could improve its value as a real-time stream of key news and information. 

And maybe, that could even end up being the thing that takes Threads over the top.

Which would be somewhat ironic, in that following Elon Musk’s lead at X could end up leading to Meta’s own replicant app becoming the dominant platform of its type.

Fate loves irony, as Elon loves to say.

And Threads is already on the way, with 300 million monthly active users, and 100 million daily. That’s compared to X’s 500 million MAU, and 250 million daily log ins. So it still has some ground to make up, but Threads is gaining momentum, and at its current growth rates, it could surpass X in the first half of this year, in terms of usage.

Even if the broader impacts of its moderation change will be negative.

The main problem with Community Notes on X is that notes, which are contributed by users, require consensus from people of opposing political viewpoints to be displayed.

That means that many notes never see the light of day, because on some issues, cross-political agreement is never going to happen.

Indeed, according to analysis conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), 73% of notes related to political topics are never shown, despite them providing valuable context.

You can see the topics most likely to fail on this front in this chart, and it’s no surprise that things like election interference will never get the nod from people on both sides of the ideological aisle.

That’ll remain a significant flaw over the next four years, as President Trump makes misleading, unsubstantiated, personally-motivated claims, that his supporters will take as undeniable truth, and his opponents will strongly disagree with.

In effect, what’s likely to happen on Threads is the opposite of X, in that false claims that are critical of Trump and his statements will gain traction, because a Meta community notes system won’t see them flagged or marked as such due to lack of cross-party agreement.

So really, we could end up with a pro-Trump echo chamber on X, and an anti-Trump discussion group on Threads. But either way, the result will be that more misinformation, confusion, and untruth will spread due to the reliance on a flawed system for fact-checking.

But for Threads, it could also ensure that it’s able to provide more real-time updates. And if it can also continue to improve the product, and meet user demand, it might be the thing that pushes it to the next level.