- Users on Threads are unable to search for COVID-19-related terms including "coronavirus" and "vaccines."
- Meta said the block is temporary while it rolls out a new search tool.
Meta has temporarily blocked searches for COVID-19-related topics on Threads as cases in the US rise after rolling out a new search tool for its X, formerly Twitter, rival.
Attempts to search "Covid" and "coronavirus" on the app bring up a blank screen and a link to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage in the US with information on the disease. The move was initially reported by The Washington Post.
Terms such as "vaccination" and "long Covid" also fail to bring up any results and redirect users to external websites. Meta confirmed to the Post that the block was intentional.
The move was discovered after Meta rolled out a new search interface for Threads, one of the latest features the company has introduced in an attempt to reverse the platforms' declining user base.
In a statement to Insider Meta confirmed that search on Threads "temporarily doesn't provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content," and said that users would be able to search for COVID-19-related topics "once we are confident in the quality of the results."
The decision to redirect queries about potentially divisive topics such as COVID-19 to external websites is in line with Meta's overall vision for its X competitor, which gained 100 million users in less than a week after launching in July.
The social media giant has attempted to cast Threads as a positive, brand-friendly environment where topics such as news and politics are largely sidelined. Insider's Nathan McAlone made the case that this makes the platform less interesting than X, the site it was intended to replace.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who is spearheading Threads, said he does not see this platform as a space for hard news or politics, although he stressed that the site would not block news topics entirely.
"Politics and hard news are important," he said in a post on Threads in July. "But my take is, from a platform's perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue they might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let's be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them."
Meta has been gradually pivoting away from news across its various platforms, as social media sites such as Facebook have come under scrutiny for spreading misinformation and political division. Both Facebook and Instagram were accused of failing to protect users from COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic.