Threads adds new communities, tests badges for highly engaged members

Meta’s social network Threads is expanding the number of topics available through its newer communities feature, the company announced on Monday. This expansion might nudge people to use communities less on Reddit and X.

The platform initially launched over 100 communities in October, including those dedicated to basketball, television, K-pop, books, and more, to better compete with other social networks. With today’s expansion, Threads now has more than 200 communities, with additions that include team-specific spaces like Lakers Threads, Knicks Threads, and Spurs Threads.

The company is testing flairs within the community as well, which is also very common on Reddit. This feature lets you add a customizable label underneath your username. For instance, in the NBA community, you can show off what team you support using flair, or in the books community, you can indicate if you’re an author.

Threads is also testing a “Champion” badge to reward members who are highly engaged in a community. The company said that it is giving badges to only a limited number of people who are highly followed in the community and who converse actively.

The social platform, which competes with Elon Musk’s X and startups like Bluesky, crossed 400 million users in August, two years after its launch. The company also noted this fall that more than 150 million people now visit the site daily.

To date, Threads has been focusing on engaging and retaining users with features like DMs, Group chats, and ephemeral posts, and other additions.