Instagram head Adam Mosseri has clarified that Meta does not want to replace Twitter but create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on the Elon Musk-run platform “that are interested in a less angry place for conversations, but not all of Twitter”.
He said that the platform is not going to just focus on breaking news and world events.
“Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads — they have on Instagram as well to some extent — but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals,” he posted on Threads.
In a reply to a question from The Verge’s Alex Heath, Mosseri said that politics and hard news are important and he does not want to imply otherwise.
“But my take is, from a platform’s perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue they might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them,” said Mosseri.
There are more than enough amazing communities — sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc — to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news, he added.
Mosseri has said there are a lot of good offerings out there for public conversations.
“But just given everything that was going on, we thought there was an opportunity to build something that was open and something that was good for the community that was already using Instagram,” he added.
