Instagram’s text-based social media platform, Threads, recently came under controversy, as it launched its modified search function on September 8 that blocks searches related to the coronavirus and other pandemic-linked questions, according to a washington post report.
Within 24 hours of the last development, the company was in controversy. When users tried threads to search for content related to “COVID” and “Long Covid,” they found a blank screen with no search results, with a pop-up linking to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, the report added.
Meta confirmed in a statement to The Washington Post that Threads was deliberately blocking search terms but refused to provide a list. According to The Post, the words “porn,” “sex,” “nude,” “gore,” “coronavirus,” “vaccine” and “vaccination” were also blocked.
“The search functionality does not temporarily provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content,” the statement said, “only when we are confident in the quality of the results that the company add search functionality for the terms,” the Washington Post was quoted as saying.
