Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      Public money, private plans: MPs demand Post Office transparency

      13 June 2025

      Coal to cash: South Africa gets major boost for energy shift

      13 June 2025

      China is behind in AI chips – but for how much longer?

      13 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025

      10 red flags for Apple investors

      13 June 2025
    • World

      Yahoo tries to make its mail service relevant again

      13 June 2025

      Qualcomm shows off new chip for AI smart glasses

      11 June 2025

      Trump tariffs to dim 2025 smartphone shipments

      4 June 2025

      Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

      4 June 2025

      Apple slams EU rules as ‘flawed and costly’ in major legal pushback

      2 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025

      South Africa unveils big state digital reform programme

      12 May 2025

      Is this the end of Google Search as we know it?

      12 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025

      TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

      4 June 2025

      TCS | Sentiv, and the story behind the buyout of Altron Nexus

      3 June 2025

      TCS | Signal restored: Unpacking the Blue Label and Cell C turnaround

      28 May 2025
    • Opinion

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025

      Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

      29 May 2025

      Solar panic? The truth about SSEG, fines and municipal rules

      14 April 2025

      Data protection must be crypto industry’s top priority

      9 April 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Social media » Users will decide what Threads becomes, not Zuckerberg

    Users will decide what Threads becomes, not Zuckerberg

    Mark Zuckerberg has pitched Meta's Twitter copycat app, Threads, as a "friendly" refuge for public discourse online.
    By Katie Paul9 July 2023
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp

    Mark Zuckerberg has pitched Meta’s Twitter copycat app, Threads, as a “friendly” refuge for public discourse online, framing it in sharp distinction to the more adversarial Twitter which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

    “We are definitely focusing on kindness and making this a friendly place,” Meta CEO Zuckerberg said on Wednesday, shortly after the service’s launch.

    Maintaining that idealistic vision for Threads — which attracted more than 70 million users in its first two days — is another story.

    To be sure, Meta Platforms is no newbie at managing the rage-baiting, smut-posting internet hordes

    To be sure, Meta Platforms is no newbie at managing the rage-baiting, smut-posting internet hordes. The company said it would hold users of the new Threads app to the same rules it maintains on its photo and video sharing social media service, Instagram.

    The Facebook and Instagram owner also has been actively embracing an algorithmic approach to serving up content, which gives it greater control over the type of fare that does well as it tries to steer more towards entertainment and away from news.

    However, by hooking up Threads with other social media services like Mastodon, and given the appeal of microblogging to news junkies, politicians and other fans of rhetorical combat, Meta is also courting fresh challenges with Threads and seeking to chart a new path through them.

    For starters, the company will not extend its existing fact-checking programme to Threads, spokeswoman Christine Pai said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday. This eliminates a distinguishing feature of how Meta has managed misinformation on its other apps.

    Labels

    Pai added that posts on Facebook or Instagram rated as false by fact-checking partners will carry their labels over if posted on Threads, too.

    Asked to explain why it was taking a different approach to misinformation on Threads, Meta declined to answer.

    In a New York Times podcast on Thursday, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, acknowledged that Threads was more “supportive of public discourse” than Meta’s other services and therefore more inclined to draw a news-focused crowd, but said the company aimed to focus on lighter subjects like sports, music, fashion and design.

    Nevertheless, Meta’s ability to distance itself from controversy was challenged immediately.

    Read: Twitter threatens to sue Meta over Threads

    Within hours of launch, Threads accounts were posting about the Illuminati and “billionaire satanists”, while other users compared each other to Nazis and battled over everything from gender identity to violence in the West Bank.

    Conservative personalities, including the son of former US President Donald Trump, complained of censorship after labels appeared warning would-be followers that they had posted false information. Another Meta spokesman said those labels were an error.

    Further challenges in moderating content are in store once Meta links Threads to the so-called fediverse, where users from servers operated by other non-Meta entities will be able to communicate with Threads users. Meta’s Pai said Instagram’s rules would likewise apply to those users.

    “If an account or server, or if we find many accounts from a particular server, is found violating our rules then they would be blocked from accessing Threads, meaning that server’s content would no longer appear on Threads and vice versa,” she said.

    Still, researchers specialising in online media said the devil would be in the details of how Meta approaches those interactions.

    Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and former head of security at Meta, posted on Threads that the company would face greater challenges in performing key types of content moderation enforcement without access to backend data about users who post banned content.

    With federation, the metadata that big platforms use to tie accounts to a single actor or detect abusive behaviour at scale aren’t available

    “With federation, the metadata that big platforms use to tie accounts to a single actor or detect abusive behaviour at scale aren’t available,” said Stamos. “This is going to make stopping spammers, troll farms and economically driven abusers much harder.”

    In his posts, he said he expected Threads to limit the visibility of fediverse servers with large numbers of abusive accounts and apply harsher penalties for those posting illegal materials like child pornography.

    Even so, the interactions themselves raise challenges.

    Read: Threads poses a real threat to Twitter, analysts say

    “There are some really weird complications that arise once you start to think about illegal stuff,” said Solomon Messing of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University. He cited examples like child exploitation, nonconsensual sexual imagery and arms sales.

    “If you run into that kind of material while you’re indexing content [from other servers], do you have a responsibility beyond just blocking it from Threads?”  — (c) 2023 Reuters

    Get TechCentral’s daily newsletter



    Adam Mosseri Alex Stamos Instagram Mark Zuckerberg Meta Meta Platforms Solomon Messing Threads Twitter
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleVodacom pushes back in network fight
    Next Article Why Twitter could lose if it sues Meta over Threads

    Related Posts

    Qualcomm shows off new chip for AI smart glasses

    11 June 2025

    Zuckerberg bets big on artificial general intelligence

    10 June 2025

    Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

    4 June 2025
    Company News

    Huawei Watch Fit 4 Series: smarter sensors, sharper design, stronger performance

    13 June 2025

    Change Logic and BankservAfrica set new benchmark with PayShap roll-out

    13 June 2025

    SAPHILA 2025 – transcending with purpose, connection and AI-powered vision

    13 June 2025
    Opinion

    Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

    2 June 2025

    South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

    2 June 2025

    Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

    29 May 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.