US-based microblogging platform Twitter is globally testing a new feature called Communities that will allow users to talk about specific topics with others who share the same interest.
Twitter in its blog post, said that certain users can create Communities and more will be added in the coming months. The company did not disclose the number of users who can create Communities in the test, but any user can participate in a group if invited.
Users who join a community can tweet specifically to others in that community as opposed to all of their followers, and the only people who can reply to community tweets will be the members of that group. The new feature is similar to Facebook Groups, Discord servers and Reddit subreddits.
Unlike Twitter’s competitors, all tweets within Communities will be visible to the public. This means that users outside of Communities will be able to read, quote tweet and report tweets within Twitter Communities.
The first Twitter Communities at launch are focused on dogs, weather, sneakers, skincare and astrology. Communities will have moderators who can invite other Twitter users into their groups.
Twitter said it would adopt its rules and enforcement actions to keep people safe in Communities, including developing ways to proactively identify groups that could be problematic.
In recent months, the social media company has launched several new features including subscription-based “super follows” and live audio chat rooms, aiming to turn around years of business stagnation.
The new feature is part of the company’s strategy to roll out more features in an effort to grow its user baser to 315 million monetizable daily active users and bring annual revenue to $7.5 billion by the end of 2023.
A Twitter spokesperson said the company had done the research and consulted experts over the past year “to better understand how Communities may be used and abused.”
