Meta's Threads is getting searchable topics (just don't call them hashtags)
The company is trying to prevent “engagement hacking.”
Meta’s latest update for Threads will address a long-running feature request for the company’s Twitter competitor: topic tags. The company is adding searchable tags to make it easier for people to find conversations that interest them.
Mark Zuckeberg previewed the change last month, but the feature is now available to all Threads users, according to the company. With the update, Threads users can append one tag to each post, and the app will surface tag suggestions and stats about how many other users have used the topic in the past.
Notably, though the feature can be found under the familiar # symbol, Threads’ tags are a bit different than hashtags. As Instagram head Adam Mosseri noted in a post, Threads tags can contain spaces and special characters. Threads posts are also limited to a single tag per post, so users may want to think carefully about which tag they select.
Hashtags have been a long-requested feature for Meta’s Twitter competitor, and many users have questioned why the company didn’t carry over the feature, which is also widely used on Instagram. It seems Meta has been slow to adopt the feature, however, because of fears of how it could be misused on the rapidly growing platform.
Hashtags, while long popular on Instagram and X, have also been misused. On Instagram, hashtags have been used to spread misinformation and other incredibly problematic content. And while Meta has already imposed search limitations on “potentially sensitive” content on Threads, the added restrictions on tags might discourage other kinds of abuse. “The hope is this design focuses tags more on communities and less on engagement hacking,” Mosseri explained.
But even with the limitations, the addition of tags could help make Threads more useful for tracking real-time conversations. And the fact that tags include stats about how much they’re being used suggests it could also be a precursor to some kind of trending topics feature, which has been the source of much speculation.
