Meta is officially rolling out Threads Communities, a new feature designed to make its X rival more engaging and interest-driven. The launch introduces over 100 communities on the app, where users worldwide can have casual conversations around shared topics such as basketball, television, K-pop, books, and more.
According to Meta, the goal is to provide users with dedicated spaces to dive deeper into meaningful discussions. Once joined, a community will appear on a user’s Threads profile, and each community offers a custom “Like” emoji unique to its theme, such as a basketball in the NBA community or a stack of books in Book Threads.
While the concept resembles X’s Communities, Threads is taking a different approach. Unlike X, where users create and moderate communities, Meta is responsible for creating Threads’ communities. Importantly, non-members can also join in discussions, making the experience more open.
Community posts on Threads may appear across the For You and Following feeds, but members get special privileges like custom emojis and, soon, profile badges for active community builders. Meta also plans to test new ranking systems to highlight top posts within communities and feeds.
A key difference from X: joining a Threads community adds its related topic tag to your profile, and this cannot be hidden. Meta says this transparency helps others instantly recognize what you’re about.
The move builds on existing user behavior. Since Threads’ launch, users have organized themselves around Topic Tags, hashtags without the “#” symbol, with some, like NBA Threads, evolving into vibrant communities even before the official feature. Communities now streamline this behavior, allowing users to post directly without remembering tags and even set a favorite community feed as their default.
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Following user trends has historically fueled innovation on social networks, from hashtags on Twitter to quote tweets and mentions. With Threads catching up to X in daily mobile activity, Meta hopes Communities will accelerate adoption and strengthen engagement.
Meta says it is starting with communities based on the app’s most active interest areas and plans to expand to more topics in the future.
