A Threads employee last month leaked a screenshot showing a trending topics feature in the app, which the company never announced. While Threads is yet to get trending topics, the platform is now rolling out tags (not hashtags) to users in Australia in preparation for offering trending topics.
The news was shared by both Instagram boss Adam Mosseri and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. According to the executives, the company is now experimenting with a tag feature in the Threads app. Although this sounds like hashtags, it works a bit differently.
Here’s how tags work on Threads
The main difference is that the tags don’t use the “#” symbol that has become universal on many social networks, including Meta’s Instagram. Instead, the user must tap the tag button, and then the Threads app will turn that word or phrase into an interactive tag. Users can find other posts with the same tag by tapping on it.
Also, unlike other social networks, each post can only have one tag. There’s also a limit to the number of characters a tag can have, although it’s not extremely short.
Interestingly, the tag feature also confirms that Threads has been working on implementing trending topics. That’s because, when you’re typing a tag, Threads suggests some popular tags and even shows the number of posts found on that tag – which looks similar to the leaked screenshot showing trending topics on Threads.
Presumably, Threads will use the tags to identify the most popular ones in the app and list them in a new trending topics section. Unfortunately, the feature is only available in Australia now and should be slowly expanded to other countries in the coming weeks.
More about Threads
Earlier this week, Threads released an update that lets users delete their accounts without leaving Instagram. The same update also allowed users to opt out of having their posts shown as recommendations on Facebook and Instagram. On a related note, the web version of Threads was updated today with filters in the Activity tab.
You can download Threads for free on the App Store.
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