• Adam Mosseri has said that Threads is working to address the growing problem of engagement bait on the platform.
• The platform’s chief says that not all posts and replies are good and as such not all content should be elevated based purely on engagement.
• It’s not clear how Threads will tackle this problem but it’s cognisant of it and hopefully it is addressed swiftly.

We’ve been spending a lot more time on Threads but in that time we’ve noticed that engagement bait is on the rise.

Engagement bait can take many forms but the core of the practice is to make a brash statement that draws a flurry of response from users. Whether that engagement is positive or negative is of no consequence because the goal is to get the algorithm to view the post as having high-engagement and have it serve the post to more people.

The problem with this is that it creates noise and if there is too much noise, regular users leave and that’s not good for a platform.

As mentioned, engagement bait has found its way to Threads and instead of ignoring the problem in hopes that it will go away, Meta is taking action.

On Monday a user pointed out that engagement baiters made little effort in hiding their actions on Threads and the platform’s algorithm was serving this low effort content to users because it was drawing in mass engagement.

The good news is that Instagram boss Adam Mosseri (Threads is a product of Instagram so Mosseri acts as its custodian) has noticed the trend as well.

“We’ve seen an increase in engagement-bait on Threads and we’re working to get it under control. More to come,” said Mosseri.

While some have argued that amplifying posts that draw in a lot of engagement is the goal Meta has in mind, Mosseri refuted this stating that, “Not all comments or replies are good.”

In fact, from our perspective Threads looks to want to differentiate itself from the likes of X and Twitter of yore, and addressing low-effort posts that seek to cause fights is one way to set yourself apart from the legacy of micro-blogging websites.

Will Threads be able to pull it off? That’s not a question we can answer but we’re glad to see the company addressing the problem before it gets out of hand. That’s more than we can say for X though where engagement bait is so prevalent and unlikely to ever be addressed thanks to the platform’s revenue share program.