Nieman Foundation at Harvard
Where did you turn for election night news? The platform formerly known as Twitter? Bluesky? The Meta-owned Threads?
Those who chose the latter hoping for timely updates about the presidential election being closely watched in the U.S. and around the world on Tuesday were disappointed. Threads users were confronted with a non-chronological feed that made the app borderline unusable on election night. With results streaming in, the default “For You” feed was consistently out-of-date and out-of-step — posts about a “red mirage” and exit polls topping final results and more recent takes. (Top posts in my personal feed were consistently about dogs or distance running.)
Post by @ryanbostonView on Threads
Post by @tomgaraView on Threads
Post by @stefan_bienkowskiView on Threads
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Post by @mattnavarraView on Threads
Post by @mattdpearceView on Threads
It’s unlikely executives at the company minded. (Meta did not respond to a request for comment about user experience on Election Day.) The head of Instagram and Threads, Adam Mosseri, has said that though Threads is “actively pursuing” news about “sports, music, fashion, [and] culture,” the platform is not encouraging news about politics.
“Just to clarify, and this is on me for not being specific enough in my language historically, we’re not trying to avoid being a place for any news,” Mosseri wrote on Threads in May. “Political news is the topic where are looking to be more careful. Politics is already very much on threads, and that’s okay, we’re just not looking to amplify it.”
When Donald Trump first won the presidency, news organizations saw a surge of new subscribers, traffic, and support. If the trending post-election posts on Threads are any indication, news organizations may be facing a much different situation for Trump’s second term. A “Trump bump” might be replaced with what Edmund Lee, an editor on the trust team at The New York Times, called a “Trump dump” as news consumers feel overwhelmed at the idea of keeping up with another chaotic term or frustrated with coverage leading up to the election.
Post by @democracylivesView on Threads
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Post by @_shaunhardy_View on Threads
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