Meta has started deploying a new“communities” feature in Threads, allowing users to join dedicated spaces centred on specific interests such as basketball, TV, K-pop or books. These communities, currently live across more than 100 curated topics, build on Threads' existing topic tags and custom feeds, but now bring a more structured environment for focused conversations.

When a user joins a community, it will be pinned to their feed menu and labelled on their profile, signalling their affiliations to others. Each community offers a unique like-emoji-say, a stack of books for Book Threads or a basketball for NBA Threads-giving posts within each space a visual identity. All users, whether joined or not, may view posts in that community, though only members receive the custom emoji benefits and other features. Meta plans to introduce badge recognitions for top contributors and refine how content is ranked, both within communities and in broader“For You” feeds.

Unlike X's model, where users create and moderate communities themselves, Meta retains control over the creation of these groups. But the company allows participation in discussions by non-members to boost visibility and engagement. The move formalises existing behaviour: many Threads users had already clustered around topic tags like“NBA Threads” or“Tech Threads,” often mimicking community dynamics before the feature was formally introduced.

This deployment is seen as Meta's bid to sharpen Threads' identity and retain user engagement amid fierce competition in social media. Threads currently reports more than 400 million monthly active users, and the new communities layer gives the platform a way to foster deeper connections around shared interests.

One significant challenge will be content moderation and signal filtering. As communities grow, Meta must balance promoting vibrant discussion with preventing spam, harassment or misinformation. Meta has already been working on a Community Notes system for Threads-allowing users to annotate or correct content-though that effort remains in development.

Another aspect to monitor is the impact on discovery and algorithmic bias. Integrating community membership into feed curation could risk echo chambers or reinforce filter bubbles unless the ranking system emphasises diversity of voices. Meta says it intends to tune ranking systems to surface the most relevant posts, but how that plays out in practice will depend on user feedback and fine-tuning.

Across the fediverse, Threads has established interoperability with networks like Mastodon via ActivityPub, allowing cross-platform interaction. This adds a layer of complexity: how community content interacts with federated posts-or whether moderation standards carry across federated links-could become a point of tension.

Early reactions from power users point to both excitement and caution. Several users already report seeing and joining communities in their app interface. Some testers praise the ability to engage in more coherent conversations instead of sifting through loosely tagged posts; others worry that the communities may feel curated or top-down rather than organic and user-led.

MENAFN12102025000152002308ID1110183921