Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said in a post on Threads that the platform’s “biggest safety focus” is on “managing content responsibly” across the Israel-Hamas war, adding that the platform is “getting pulled in quite a lot of directions without delay at once.”
Within the meantime, Threads will proceed to temporarily block searches for terms like “Covid-19” and “long Covid.”
Threads is Meta’s text-based competitor to X, formerly often known as Twitter, which launched in July. Meta also owns the social media platforms Instagram and Facebook. The corporate has been facing pressure from regulators to be “vigilant” about removing disinformation in the course of the conflict in Israel and ahead of upcoming elections.
But Meta has also received sharp criticism over its decision to dam search results for certain terms on Threads. For example, when users type the word “Covid” or “vaccine” into the search bar, they’re prompted with a suggestion to depart the platform and visit the web site for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mosseri said he didn’t have a timeline as to when the corporate will stop blocking Covid-related terms on the platform, but he said it’s “temporary and we’re working on it,” adding that it should likely be resolved inside weeks or months.
“The most important safety focus at once is managing content responsibly given the war in Israel in Gaza,” Mosseri wrote. “The broader team is working on deeper integrations into Instagram and Facebook, graph constructing, EU compliance, Fediverse support, trending, and usually ensuring Threads continues to grow.”
In a blog post published Friday, Meta described the actions it has taken to mitigate content across the Israel-Hamas war for the reason that conflict began. The corporate has created a special operations center with experts fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, and it has removed or marked greater than 795,000 posts that violated policies against violent and graphic content, hate speech, harassment or coordinating harm, amongst others.
“The fact is that now we have a number of vital work to do,” Mosseri said. “The team is moving fast, but we’re not yet where we wish to be.”
Meta didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s request for comment.
