Threads is the next social network to confront misinformation

After several months absent from our continent, Threads, the Meta app created to compete with Twitter, is now available in Europe starting today, Thursday. After resolving its legal “issues” with the European Union, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network enters a territory where Twitter, still in a dying state, remains the undisputed leader, ahead of apps like Bluesky or Mastodon.

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But Meta doesn’t hesitate to stand up to the social network owned by Elon Musk, even going so far as to copy some of its most prominent features, such as the popular Community Notes, which allow Twitter users to add extra information to tweets that include misinformation, incomplete information, or even scams.

And it is that, as announced this week by Meta itself, the company plans to add a fact-checking feature in Threads with the aim of addressing misinformation within the app itself instead of managing it through its other platforms.

Although the parent company of Facebook and Instagram uses third-party fact-checking teams to address misinformation on these social networks, Threads currently does not have its own independent information verification team. This situation will change very soon.

“Early next year, our external fact-checking partners will be able to review and rate misinformation in Threads,” Meta explains in a publication. “Currently, when a fact-checker rates content as false on Facebook or Instagram, we extend that fact-check rating to nearly identical content on Threads, but fact-checkers cannot rate Threads content on its own.”

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, also shared a post about this new program, although he didn’t provide many details beyond it arriving “next year”. “Currently, we match fact-checking ratings from Facebook or Instagram with Threads, but our goal is for fact-checking partners to have the ability to review and rate misinformation in the app,” wrote Mosseri. “There will be more updates soon.”

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