Threads takes on X with global rollout of new Communities feature
The feature, announced on Thursday, introduces more than 100 communities.
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Meta has rolled out a new Communities feature on Instagram Threads, its fast-growing rival to X, in a bid to deepen user engagement and expand conversations on the platform.
The feature, announced on Thursday, introduces more than 100 communities covering topics from basketball and K-pop to books and television. With over 400 million monthly active users, Threads is positioning Communities as a way for people to engage in more focused and casual discussions within the app.
Meta explained that communities give users dedicated spaces to connect on themes that matter to them. Membership will be visible on a user’s Threads profile, and each community comes with its own custom “Like” emoji — for example, a basketball in the NBA community or a stack of books in the Books community. Active community builders will also earn profile badges in future updates.
While the idea mirrors X’s existing Communities feature, the execution differs. On X, communities are user-created, moderated, and function more like Reddit groups, with posts visible across the platform but only members able to participate. Threads’ Communities, however, are created and managed by Meta itself, with non-members also able to join discussions.
Posts from Threads communities can surface across the platform, including in For You and Following feeds. Only members, however, gain access to special privileges such as custom emojis. Meta says it will also test new ranking systems to ensure top posts appear more prominently both within communities and in broader feeds.
Membership visibility is another key difference. On Threads, when a user joins a community, the association becomes part of their public profile through a related topic tag. Unlike X, there is no option to hide this, with Meta emphasising the feature is designed to make users’ interests instantly recognisable to others.
The launch signals Meta’s latest move to compete more directly with X by embedding deeper social features into Threads, moving it beyond a simple text-sharing platform.
