2 weeks ago
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“For You” algorithms that promote the most interesting content across a social network, personalized to the individual user, offered a disjointed, outdated, and nearly unusable experience on election night in the U.S. as they highlighted hours-old posts that no longer reflected the current state of the race. Frustrations were particularly high on Threads, Meta’s X rival, where many users complained about seeing hopeful posts about a Kamala Harris win, and those urging voters to “stay in line” or touting early results as a “red mirage,” even after it was clear that Harris was losing ground to President-elect Trump in battleground states. Those posts continued to appear after a Trump victory was nearly realized, as if users had temporarily time-traveled to the past.
“This app is awful for tonight. The outdated garbage I’m seeing in the For You feed is infuriating,” wrote one Threads user, echoing a sentiment shared across the platform on election night.
“Seeing 24-hour-old optimistic posts interspersed with the dread of now kind of sucks,” wrote another, speaking to the experience of Harris supporters on the social network, as the feed randomly threw in current posts amid those from earlier in the evening.
Others referred to Threads’ For You feed as rubbing salt in the wound, painful, annoying, and giving off a “non-linear horror movie vibe.“
These complaints aren’t new — but they are indicative of a larger problem facing Threads: its user interface.
As it turns out, the reverse chronological feed these users wanted on Threads already exists.
Launched in July 2023, Threads offers users a Following feed that shows posts only from those users you follow on the social network, without any recommended content included. The feed works similarly to X’s Following feed, in that the posts are not algorithmically sorted, but display in the order they arrive. However, unlike X, the Following feed is fairly hidden in the Threads app — and clearly many don’t know it exists or how to access it.
Meanwhile, on X, moving to the chronological feed is as simple as tapping the tab at the top of the screen, making it easy to switch between a real-time experience and an algorithmic one.
At issue is how Threads has designed its app to hide the Following feed from users.
On mobile, users have to tap the Threads icon at the top of the screen to display the two tab options, For You and Following. Ideally, both tabs would always be available, allowing users to choose which experience they preferred at the time. On the web, meanwhile, Threads has offered a TweetDeck-like experience since May, allowing users to pin multiple columns, including the chronological feed. But real-time events like elections are often watched phone-in-hand while glued to a TV. And it’s here on mobile that Threads falls short.
The problem is not limited to Threads. On TikTok, launching the For You feed on Wednesday morning may display a mix of videos with outdated election coverage personalized to your interests and leanings. (Unless you actively avoided politics on the platform, of course). That means you could see videos urging voting even after the election has been decided, which is also frustrating and unhelpful.
Whether user complaints will have any impact is unclear, though not very likely.
Regulators have been pushing social media platforms to turn off addictive, algorithmic feeds in some markets, including the E.U., but there are no rules in the U.S. about how these feeds need to function or if they can be set as a default. Allowing users to switch permanently to a chronological timeline isn’t an option Meta or others would want because algorithmic feeds work better for advertisers and data indicates they increase user engagement. That leaves users at the mercy of the chaotic algorithmic feeds at a time when real-time information is critical.
