Right-wing users are testing the boundaries of Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads.
Several right-wing users have signed up to the platform, with some posting antagonistic content.
Zuckerberg has tried to position Threads as a friendly alternative to Elon Musk’s Twitter.
Right-wing users are testing the boundaries of Mark Zuckerberg’s “friendly” Twitter alternative, Threads.
According to a news post from Media Matters, far-right figures including white nationalist Richard Spencer and white supremacist Nick Fuentes joined the app within the first 24 hours of its launch. Richard Spencer’s account has since gone.
Fuentes said in a livestream on July 6 that he had dodged Meta’s content moderation by making a “fake Instagram” and encouraged his followers to “try and build a big account” on the new platform. He added that no one knew the Treads account was attached to him.
Spencer has previously faced bans by Facebook and Twitter, although his Twitter account was later reinstated. Fuentes is suspended from most mainstream platforms, per Vice, and was recently booted off Twitter again after getting his account back for one day in January.
Other right-wing users are testing the limits of Threads content moderation, employing tactics like spelling out racial slurs in separate comments below a post, per Media Matters.
Bo Dittle, a right-wing influencer posted: “I’m gonna use this app to talk about a bunch of things I would never put on Instagram. Let the drama begin.”
Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, made outside normal working hours. However, the company says online that as Threads is linked to Instagram, it will follow its terms of use and guidelines. This includes removing content “that contains credible threats or hate speech.”
Zuckerberg has tried to position Threads as a friendly alternative to Elon Musk’s Twitter.
The Meta CEO said his vision for the app was to “create an open and friendly public space for conversation” while a post from the official Threads account described the app’s aim as fostering “a positive and creative space” for users.
Over at Twitter, Musk’s self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” has publicly criticized the platform’s content moderation and allowed many banned users back onto the platform.
Instagram has struggled with content moderation in the past. Users have previously leveraged features such as stories, links in bio, and post comment sections to bypass Meta’s rules.
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