Nearly three years after its launch as a rival to X, formerly Twitter, Threads has reached 500 million monthly active users, Meta announced on Tuesday.
According to TechCrunch, The Meta-owned social media platform also introduced a range of new features, including “Your Algo”, a tool that allows users to control the content displayed in their feeds.
The feature builds on the “Dear Algo” tool launched in February, which allowed users to influence recommendations through public posts. With “Your Algo”, users can privately indicate whether they wish to see more or less content on specific topics without publishing a public message.
Users can select how long their preferences remain active, choosing periods of one, three or seven days. The settings are visible only to the account holder.
The feature is being rolled out in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
The update gives Threads an advantage over rival platforms by allowing users to temporarily influence recommendations in a way not currently available elsewhere.
Meta has also brought its “Communities” feature out of beta and introduced additional improvements. Communities provide dedicated spaces for discussions on subjects including basketball, television, K-pop and books.
Users can now discover groups through a new “Communities Hub”, while distinct icons have been added to help identify individual communities more easily.
Instagram head Connor Hayes said the new hub was designed to help users find communities that match their interests and improve their experience on the platform.
Threads has also expanded Live Chats to more communities and added the ability to co-host chats and quote moments directly to users’ feeds.
Introduced in April, Live Chats support real-time discussions during major cultural and sporting events, including the FIFA World Cup. By July, all communities are expected to gain access to the feature.
Hayes said many users valued the quieter nature of Threads compared with more video-focused social platforms, adding that Live Chats provided a useful companion experience for people following live events.
The expansion of Live Chats is expected to strengthen Threads’ position in real-time online discussions, an area traditionally dominated by X.
Threads initially lagged behind X in relevance and timeliness due to the absence of features such as advanced search functions, hashtags and chronological feeds. Many of those capabilities have since been added as the platform continues to compete more aggressively in the social media market.
The latest milestone means Threads has added 100 million monthly active users in the past 10 months after reporting 400 million monthly users in August 2025.
The platform’s growth has coincided with the introduction of several new features over the past year, including direct messaging, ghost posts and desktop messaging.
