Meta's Threads Enhances User Control with New Features

Meta Platforms Inc’s (NASDAQ:META) Threads and Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced Thursday that Threads is rolling out a new “Hidden Words” feature. The feature allows users to filter offensive or unwanted words, phrases, and emojis from their feeds and mentions. The feature comes with preset filters and allows users to add custom words and phrases via the settings, which they can deactivate at any time, TechCrunch reports. Also Read: Meta’s Instagram Takes Steps Against Sextortion of Teenage Users Similarly, Match Group, Inc’s (NASDAQ:MTCH) dating app Hinge launched its “Hidden Words” feature earlier this week, which blocks comments containing specific unwanted words. The feature on Threads filters content across the “Following” and “For You” feeds, search results, profiles, and replies to posts. Moreover, Threads already provides options for users to control who can reply to their posts—whether it’s anyone, profiles they follow, or just those mentioned—and who they can mention in posts, replies, and bios, with settings including everyone, profiles they follow, or no one. Threads is also planning to introduce controls for quoting posts. Soon, users will be able to restrict who can quote their posts and offer the ability to manually unquote posts. Additionally, Threads is testing a feature allowing users to mute notifications from post interactions. Threads is actively introducing new functionalities, such as testing automatic post archiving. During a recent Meta earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that Threads has reached over 150 million monthly active users. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues to probe the privacy practices of Meta’s Facebook unit. Despite Meta arguing that it has paid a $5 billion fine and implemented numerous safeguards under a 2020 privacy settlement, the FTC aims to strengthen the agreement, especially concerning the use of minors’ data and the application of facial recognition technology. The agency has criticized Meta for failing to protect children’s privacy adequately. Recently, Meta announced that it would shut down its Threads service in Turkey on April 29 following a provisional directive from the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA). Additionally, Meta had to postpone the introduction of Threads to the European Union due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Meta stock gained 111% in the last 12 months. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via The Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLC) and Fidelity MSCI Communication Services Index ETF (NYSE:FCOM). Price Action: META shares are trading higher by 1.09% at $446.21 premarket at the last check Friday. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo via Shutterstock.