Today, Meta’s X competitor, Threads, revealed it’s testing a new feature called communities—a dedicated space where users can chat about specific topics. Want the latest on the NBA or to chat about last night’s game? Now you can do that on Threads. Think of it as a Subreddit, but with a twist.
Once you join a Community, Threads labels your profile to show your membership. Community posts will also get pinned to your feed menu, making them easy to find.
“After trying the feature for myself, I found that each community displays a mix of content posted directly to the space, as well as posts that are just related to the topic.” Emma Roth, The Verge
Each community also gets its own custom like button. For example, if you’re hanging out in NBA Threads, tapping like drops a 🏀 emoji, while Book Threads swaps in a 📚 emoji. The emoji changes to match the vibe of each community.
Communities on X work a bit differently from those on Threads. On X, anyone can spin up a new community—just like starting a subreddit on Reddit—and those spaces are run by fellow users. You can only post if you’re a member.
Threads flips the script: Meta creates and moderates the communities, and you don’t even have to join to jump into the conversation—you can post even if you’re not a member of that community.
Just like on X, when you post in a Threads community, your post still shows up in your followers’ and discovery feeds. But there’s a catch: you’ll need to be in that community if you want to use the special like button.
On Threads, the communities you join connect directly to your “Topic Tags” on your profile. There’s no hiding it—Meta says the feature is built so everyone instantly knows what you’re into.
“There’s no way to hide this association”, Meta told TechCrunch, “because the feature is designed to let others on the app instantly know what you’re about.” - Sarah Perez.
Meta says this feature is still in testing, and communities are only made based on the most active interests Meta sees on Threads. The company invited a small number of users to beta test the new feature.