The new Meta application TopicsA potential rival of Twitter/X, maybe doesn’t want politics on its platform, but it still happens on the app – at least that’s what Threads’ search trends indicate. The app began testing its Twitter-like trends feature last month with a small group of U.S. users, but is now more widely available to Threads’ user base on desktop web and mobile, according to users. reports. (Instagram says it’s still in testing, though). And with this expansion, it seems that the topics Threads users talk about most are actually political in nature.
As of this writing, three of the top five search trends on Threads are related to President Biden’s State of the Union address, including people’s reactions to the speech itself, as well as the response Republican and the heckling of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Image credits: Screenshot of chats
The fact that SOTU dominates Threads trends indicates that when you present users with a real-time platform, similar to Twitter, where they can respond quickly in short, text-based messages, they are likely to use that platform. form to talk about the news of the day. And Thursday’s SOTU drew plenty of commentary, with Biden weighing in on polarizing issues that invite discussion, like abortion rights, gun control, taxes, the border and crime, among others .
Meta, however, has for years sought to distance itself from politics on its platforms after resisting criticism that it favored one side or the other. In 2016, the company changed Facebook’s News Feed to prioritize posts from family and friends over news. In 2022, he even renamed the news feed as simply “Feed”. In the past, the company had also admitted find several Disinformation campaigns linked to Russia aimed at influencing the American elections.
Most recently, as the United States once again approaches election season, Instagram announced that it would not do so. no longer “proactively” recommends political content on Instagram or Threads, which upset many users who came to Threads, especially for a Twitter-like experience after Elon Musk bought the platform now called X. Creators who post about laws and legislation, elections or other political and social issues, we were not happy with this change.
But there is one area where Threads doesn’t (yet) remove politics, and it’s in its Trending feature.
Of course, how long Threads will allow political content to remain in its trending section before it’s replaced by something apolitical is an area we intend to keep an eye on.
Updated 3/8/24, with Instagram statement. The company confirms that testing is underway in the United States and a bug caused the functionality to appear by users outside the United States for a period of time.
