Meta is finally providing a bit of visibility into what kinds of conversations are happening on its Twitter competitor, Threads. The service is rolling out its “trending now” feature to all US users, Mark Zuckerberg said in a post.
The feature, which the company began testing in February, uses AI to surface a handful of topics “based on what people are engaging with right now.” Trends will appear in Threads’ search page and will also appear in between posts in users’ For You feeds.
For now, the feature is still fairly limited. Threads only shows five trending topics at any one time, which is likely an attempt to keep the list relatively curated and avoid some of the issues that have plagued the feature on Twitter and now X. Meta has said it employs human “content specialists” to review topics and ensure that trends comply with the company’s safety rules.
Still, the official arrival of trends brings a much-requested feature to the app. Up until now, users had very few ways to get insight into what others are talking about outside of what they can see in their own feeds. Trends also gives users a way to keep up with some news and current events on the platform, despite Meta’s reluctance to “encourage” news content on Threads.