Meta's Threads Launches Topic-Based Communities With 400M Users

Meta's Instagram Threads, which has rapidly grown to over 400 million monthly active users, has launched a new Communities feature to foster focused discussions on various topics such as basketball, K-pop, books, and TV shows. This Reddit-inspired feature allows users to join or create topic-specific groups, with over 100 communities available globally at launch, and integrates with existing topic tags and custom feeds to enhance user engagement. Communities on Threads differ from X's (formerly Twitter) model by being internally created by Meta, allowing non-members to participate in discussions, while members enjoy perks like unique "Like" emojis and soon, contributor badges. Posts within communities appear in users' feeds tagged with the community name, aiming to provide curated and relevant content over the algorithm-driven viral feeds typical of other platforms. Meta plans to implement advanced ranking algorithms to highlight top posts within communities and across the platform's broader feed, positioning Threads as a conversational social network that caters to niche interests and deeper interactions. This move is seen as a strategic effort to increase retention among creators and users fatigued by broader social media platforms.