Threads reaches 500 million users as Meta expands communities and feed controls

Meta said Threads has reached 500 million users active each month, up about 100 million since August, as the company adds new community features and broader feed controls to its text-based social app.

Threads launched in 2023 as Meta's answer to X, with a fast sign-up path through Instagram. That tie gave Threads a built-in growth engine: Instagram users could bring their identity, network, and habits into a new app with less friction than a fresh social account demands.

Meta now points to communities as a growth driver. The company will take communities out of beta and add distinct icons for each one. Threads will also add a Communities Hub to the main menu, placing group discovery beside the main feed instead of burying it in topic flows.

The update also adds Community Progress, a feature that shows users when a topic sits close to community status and shows actions that can help it qualify. Meta will give community champion status to more users, turning high-participation members into visible signals for group health.

Threads will add community tags in local languages for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. That change matters for adoption because social apps often lose nuance when topic labels force users into English. Local tags can make discovery feel less imported and more tied to the way users talk in each market.

Meta also plans to expand Live Chats to more communities in the coming weeks. Users will be able to quote chat moments into the main feed, giving fast-moving conversations a path into broader Threads posts. That feature could help communities generate public posts without forcing users to rewrite a live exchange from scratch.

The largest product shift centers on algorithm control. Threads already offers Dear Algo, a feature that lets users tell the feed what they want to see more or less of. Meta now adds Your Algo, which applies similar controls to specific topics.

Users can choose how long a Your Algo request lasts: one day, three days, or seven days. That time limit gives the feature a practical shape. A user who wants more World Cup posts for a week or fewer phone leaks during a launch cycle can tune the feed without making a permanent preference change.

Threads will place Dear Algo and Your Algo in one hub. Meta says each user's requests stay private. Your Algo starts today in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.

The update shows how Meta wants Threads to mature beyond its early role as an X alternative. Communities give users places to gather around topics. Feed controls give users more say over ranking. Instagram still supplies the strongest ecosystem link, but Meta now has to make Threads feel useful on its own.

Threads users can access the service through the official Threads website. Meta's broader social ecosystem still runs through Instagram, which remains the account bridge that helped Threads scale faster than smaller rivals.