Threads, Meta’s new social network, is experiencing turbulent times. Launched just a few months ago in Europe, the platform is already facing numerous criticisms regarding its management of content moderation. Meta, the parent company of Threads, recognizes problems in this area and is committed to addressing them quickly. A welcome stance in the face of numerous complaints from users in recent days.
Sometimes absurd moderation decisions
In recent times, Threads users have expressed their dissatisfaction with moderation considered too aggressive, even inconsistent. Among the most striking examples, accounts penalized for using innocuous words like “cracker” or “saltines”.
Adam Mosseriat the head of Threads, explains these errors by a malfunction of an internal tool. This bug prevented human moderators from having enough context about the posts they were supposed to evaluate, leading to sometimes absurd decisions.
Changes already underway
Faced with these problems, Threads reacted quickly. Changes have already been made to correct the situation. The goal: to allow moderators to make better decisions by having an overview of the conversations.
For those of you who have expressed concerns about enforcement issues: we are looking into the matter and have already identified errors and made changes. The main problem was that our reviewers (people) were making decisions without having the context of how the conversations were going, which was a gap. We’re fixing this so they can make better decisions and we can make fewer mistakes. We’re trying to provide you with a safer experience, and we need to improve. Thank you for your patience and continue to give us your feedback.
Adam Mosseri recognizes that the platform needs to do better to provide a safer experience for its users. A welcome mea culpa which contrasts with the often passive attitude of social networks towards criticism.
More improvements to come
Moderation isn’t the only point raised by the Threads community recently. The social network is also committed to better controlling so-called “engagement bait” publications, designed to generate a maximum of likes and comments, often in a spammy or divisive manner.
This speech by Adam Mosseri is a strong and encouraging signal. It’s rare to see a social network executive so openly acknowledge problems and promise to fix them. This is a step in the right direction to build a relationship of trust with users.
Let’s hope that Threads will be able to keep its commitments and continue to listen to feedback from its community to offer an ever more qualitative experience. There is still a long way to go, but the desire for improvement seems to be there.