• After launching a native search function on its platform last week, some publications have found that specific terms do not return results in Threads.
• Terms such as covid, covid-19, vaccines, sex, and more, deliver blank search results.
• According to Instagram’s head, this is because a more cautious approach has been taken for Threads.

The initial fervour around Threads as being the Twitter killer (as it was still called at the time) seems to have died down quite a bit. In order to generate interest again, Meta (which owns Instagram and by extension Threads) announced a native search function, but some publications have noticed that specific terms have been blocked in the search results.

According to The Washington Post (paywall), the platform is actively blocking search results for terms that are deemed to be “potentially sensitive”. These include the likes of covid, covid-19, vaccines, and more.

This makes sense to some degree, especially as the discourse around the pandemic and subsequent misinformation became a serious issue that many a social media platform had a difficult time monitoring and policing.

The same blanking of search results extends to terms like gore, sex, and nude, which again makes sense given the requirements around COPPA and the privacy of children.

In a statement to The Washington Post, an unnamed Instagram spokesperson noted that, “The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content.”

The platform’s head, Adam Mosseri, followed up said statement with a post on X explaining that Threads was, “Trying to learn from (past) mistakes and believe it’s better to bias towards being careful as we roll out search.”

He added that the platform was working to, “support more searches quickly.” Precisely when that will happen, however, remains to be seen.

With Threads still missing a lot of functionality compared to more established social media platforms, it is at least pleasing to see that its higher-ups are taking a more measured approach when it comes to adding functionality, especially when it comes to potentially problematic content.

That said, it will be interesting to see whether users are willing to wait too, or simply move to something new in the interim.

[Image – Photo by Dave Adamson on Unsplash]