‘ThreadsDeck’ arrived just in time for Trump’s verdict

Yes, we call it “ThreadsDeck” now.

At least that’s the tag many are using to describe the new user interface for Instagram’s X competitor Threads, which is reminiscent of the column-based format of Twitter’s old app TweetDeck (now X Pro). Two weeks after initial testing of functionality that lets Threads users pin columns to the desktop web app’s home screen, says Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced Thursday that this alternative view began to spread worldwide — just in time for everyone to discuss the hottest political news of the year: the Trump statement.

The new UI option positions Threads as a more serious from Instagram. In February, the company announced that both Instagram and Threads would no longer “proactively” recommend political content — an odd choice for a potential Twitter/X competitor in an election year.

It is not difficult to understand why the company made this decision. Meta has been repeatedly involved in political struggles, especially in the US where it has been accused by Republicans of censoring free speech and of being too soft on the Democrats misinformation and disinformation. With its entry into the real-time social networking space and its positioning of Threads as an alternative public forum to Elon Musk’s X, Meta quickly caught the attention of House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) last year.

When Threads was just a few weeks old, Jordan wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with questions about the app’s content moderation policies. Here we go againMeta probably thought.

Instead of tackling the headache, Threads turned his back on politics. The company said it will not proactively insert political content into Threads’ In-Feed recommendations or recommend it across platforms on Instagram.

But while Threads wanted to avoid politics in favor of creator content, its users didn’t.

Even after the policy change, political content regularly dominated Threads trends. For example, when President Biden gave his State of the Union address in March, terms referring to the speech itself, the bickering and the Republican response were popular. These days, the network is full of discussions about Trump’s verdict, as you would expect on any real-time social platform.

Easier to follow news in real time

With the previous Threads UI, following different topics, threads, and discussions was much more difficult – and, most importantly, it didn’t feel real-time. Switching between your For You and Following feeds required clicking back and forth. There was no easy way to continuously pursue an area of ​​interest. That changes with Threads’ column-based alternate layout, which users have affectionately dubbed “ThreadsDeck.”

Now you can pin your For You and Following feeds side by side, as well as your Liked, Saved, Profile, Activity, or Search feed that highlights the top trends. Most importantly, you can search for any topic you want to follow – like ‘Trump’, for example – and add it as a separate column as well.

Additionally, each column can be toggled outside of your For You feed to enable automatic updates, like TweetDeck. In fact, it’s not just a feature for subscribers, like X Pro.

This change will make Threads look, feel, and work more like Twitter/X, regardless of Meta’s corporate ban around political content.

The ban confuses users, who do not understand how Meta will decide which content to block. Will a photo of Taylor Swift not be recommended if she’s holding ‘Biden-Harris’ cookies, one user recently wondered when posting a test of the algorithm?

Mosseri tried to make clear that the company’s work on politics “occurs primarily at the account level, not at the post level.” Him too tried to explain again that Threads was not ‘anti-news’,“It just wouldn’t” enhance political news.

“News about sports, music, fashion and culture is something we actively pursue. Political news is the subject where we should be more careful,’ he said in one response.

In every instance where he brings this up, user replies fill the thread, expressing their disagreement with Meta’s position.

Some of those shots were more nuanced than others.

“There is simply no way a viable, real-time social media platform can escape without being partly a news platform,” scolded technology journalist Lance Ulanoff. “Lean in and figure out how to support it all in a way that avoids the mistakes of anyone left in your wake.”

Another simply screamed“GIVE US NEWS!”

At least now users no longer have to wait for Meta to change its mind; they can personalize the app to meet their demand for real-time, automatically updated information on various topics, including politics.

If Threads succeeds in displacing X as a news platform, it will be despite its misleading policies around political content, not because of them. And because it finally gave users the tools – through “ThreadsDeck” – to build the app they wanted for themselves.