Topics add new communities, and test badges for highly engaged members

Meta social network Threads is expanding the number of threads available through its newest Communities feature, the company announced Monday. This expansion may lead people to use communities on Reddit and X less.

The platform initially launched more than 100 communities in October, including those dedicated to basketball, TV, K-pop, books and more, to better compete with other social networks. With the current expansion, Threads now has over 200 communities, with additions including team-specific spaces such as Lakers Threads, Knicks Threads, and Spurs Threads.

The company does taste testing within the community as well, which is also very popular on Reddit. This feature allows you to add a customizable label below your username. For example, in the NBA community, you can show which team you support using a flair, or in the book community, you can indicate if you are an author.

Threads is also testing a “Champion” badge to reward members who are highly engaged in the community. The company said it only awards badges to a limited number of people with a large following in the community and who actively speak out.

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

So far, Threads has focused on attracting and retaining users through features like direct messaging, group chats, ephemeral posts, and other add-ons.