Several Threads users on the iOS app reported that they are seeing a change in the option to sort search results on the social network app. However, the company said that the feature was just an internal prototype rolled out by mistake. The company added that the internal prototype was accidentally made available for a small number of people yet it was not something they were testing externally.
Threads is an online social media and social networking service that was launched on the 5th of July 2023 and is owned and operated by Meta. The app offers users the ability to post and share text, images, and videos, as well as interact with other users’ posts through replies, reposts, and likes. In November 2023, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri explained that Threads doesn’t have an option to search for the latest results as it will create a safety loophole.
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“To clarify, having a comprehensive list of *every* post with a specific word in chronological order inevitably means spammers and other bad actors pummel the view with content by simply adding the relevant words or tags. And before you ask why we don’t take down that bad content, understand there’s a lot more content that people don’t want to see than we can or should take down,” Adam’s post stated. He further added “To avoid getting overrun with bad actors and boys, search products need some ranking. You can show results in chronological order, but you then need to omit bad content that does not quote cross the line and qualify to get taken down.”
In conclusion, “We’re certainly not done working on search, and we understand we need to work out how to make it work for events that are breaking in real-time. It’s just not yet clear what the best path is, so we’ll continue to try things, see how people use search, and iterate.”
Threads first started testing the ability to search for posts in Australia and New Zealand in August 2023. In September 2023, Meta rolled out the search to almost all English and Spanish-speaking countries where the social network was available. In December 2023, the company expanded the search to all languages along with the launch in the EU later in the month.