Yes, we will call it “TopicsCover” now.
At least that’s the label many are using to describe the new user interface for Instagram’s X competitor, Threads, which resembles the column-based format of Twitter’s former app, TweetDeck (now X Pro). Two weeks after first testing the functionality that allows Threads users to pin columns to the home screen of their desktop web app, Instagram director Adam Mosseri. Announced Thursday that this alternative vision was beginning to spread globally, just in time for everyone to discuss the hottest political news of the year: the Trump verdict.
The new UI option positions Threads as a more serious X rival for those seeking real-time news and information, allowing users to avoid Meta’s ill-considered decision to distance itself from political discussions on streaming platforms Instagram. In February, the company announced that both Instagram and Threads would no longer “proactively” recommend political content, an odd choice for a potential Twitter/X competitor in an election year.
It’s not difficult to understand why the company made this decision. Meta has been repeatedly dragged into the political struggle, particularly in the US, where she has been accused by republicans of censoring freedom of expression and on the part of the Democrats of being too soft on misinformation and disinformation. With his entry into the real-time social media space and his positioning of Threads as an alternative public forum to Elon Musk’s X, Meta soon caught the attention of House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R- OH), last year.
When Threads was just a few weeks old, Jordan wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with questions about the app’s content moderation policies. Here we go againMeta probably thought.
Instead of dealing with the headache, Threads turned his back on politics. The company said it will not proactively insert political content into Threads In-Feed recommendations or recommend it across multiple Instagram surfaces.
But while Threads wanted to avoid politics in favor of creator content, its users didn’t.
Even after the policy change, political content regularly dominated Threads trends. When President Biden delivered his State of the Union address in March, for example, terms referring to the speech itself, boos, and the Republican response were trending. Today, the web is abuzz with discussions related to the Trump verdict, as you would expect on any real-time social platform.
Easier to follow news in real time
With the previous Threads UI, following different topics, threads, and discussions was much more difficult and, more importantly, didn’t feel like real time. Moving between the For You and Following feeds required clicking back and forth. There was no easy way to track an area of interest on a continuous basis. This changes with Threads’ alternative column-based layout, which users have affectionately dubbed “ThreadsDeck.”
Now you can pin the For You and Following feeds side by side, as well as your Likes, Saves, Profile, Activity, or a search feed that highlights top trends. Most importantly, you can search for any topic you want to follow (for example, “Trump”) and add that as a separate column as well.
What’s more, any column outside the For You feed can be toggled to allow automatic updates, like TweetDeck. Even better, it’s not a subscriber-only feature like X-Pro.
This change goes a long way toward making Threads look, feel, and function more like Twitter/X, regardless of any corporate bans Meta has implemented around political content.
The ban confuses users, who do not understand how Meta will decide what content to block. Won’t a photo of Taylor Swift be recommended if she’s holding “Biden-Harris” cookies? a user recently asked when publishing a test of the algorithm.
Mosseri attempted to clarify that the company’s work around the policy occurs “primarily at the account level, not the post level.” He too I tried to explain again that Threads was not “anti-news.”“; it simply would not “amplify political news.”
“We actively seek news about sports, music, fashion and culture. Political news is the topic. [we] “We are looking to be more careful,” he said in a response.
In every case where he mentions this, user responses fill the thread, expressing their disagreement with Meta’s position.
Some of those shots were more nuanced than others.
“There is simply no way that a viable, real-time social media platform can function without being, in part, a news platform.” tech journalist reprimanded Launch Ulanoff. “Lean into it and figure out how to back it all up in a way that avoids the mistakes of everyone else in your path.”
Another just screamed.“GIVE US NEWS!”
At least now users no longer have to wait for Meta to change their mind: they can customize the app to meet their demand for automatically updated, real-time information on various topics, including politics.
If Threads manages to supplant X as a news platform, it will be despite its misguided policies around political content, not because of them. And because it finally gave users the tools, through “ThreadsDeck”, to create the application they wanted for themselves.
