Multiple Threads users on the iOS app reported earlier today that they are seeing a new “Latest” option to sort search results on the new social network.
However, the company told TechCrunch that the feature was just an internal prototype and was rolled out by mistake.
“Earlier today, an internal prototype was accidentally made available for a small number of people — this is not something we’re testing externally at this time,“ they said in a statement.
In November, 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.”
“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,” Mosseri said at that time. “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.”
He added that it’s possible to show results in chronological order but the social network then would need to weed out the bad-quality content.
Threads first started testing the ability to search for posts in Australia and New Zealand in August 2023. In September last year, Meta rolled out the search to almost all English- and Spanish-speaking countries where the social network was available. In December, the company expanded the search to all languages along with the launch in the EU later in the month.