Meta is taking another page from the Twitter playbook and incorporating the age-old social media staple of hashtags into its Threads app. According to an announcement from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Threads is kicking off trials for a feature that lets users label their content with topics or themes, leveraging the ubiquitous “#” symbol to activate tagging. However, the twist lies in the presentation: rather than a traditional hashtag, these tags will be shown as click-on blue links sans the hash symbol.
The pilot for this new tagging system is launching down under, with Australia being the first to try out the functionality. The Threads team at Meta plans to refine the experience based on the feedback they gather from initial users. Zuckerberg also hinted that expanded testing across more countries is on the horizon.
To put the tagging feature into action on Threads, users can either hit a dedicated # icon or manually type out the symbol followed by text. This interactive tool offers tag suggestions to complete your thoughts or allows the creation of entirely new tags. Once a tag is selected and the post goes live, it becomes a gateway for others to discover related content by tapping on the given tag. The design is intended to present a more refined, symbol-free aesthetic than the traditional hashtag appearance on other platforms.
Setting itself apart from Twitter's model, Threads will apply a restriction allowing only one tag per post. This decision seems to be a strategic move by Meta to combat the prevalence of spam, which often entails loading posts with multiple trending tags to gain visibility. Additionally, the one-tag rule possibly aims to avoid the awkwardness associated with the overuse of tags, which can come across as a desperate plea for attention.
On the flip side, this limitation could pose a challenge. There are scenarios where a single tag isn't sufficient to capture the nuances of an event or subject matter that may be unfolding under several different hashtags—akin to using #AppleEvent and variants like #visionOS to fine-tune the focus of the discussion. In the first version of Threads’ tag feature, users will need to make a choice and commit to just one label.
Threads' foray into hashtag functionality had been under the radar during development, and its roll-out revives the debate over the place of hashtags in the future of online social interactions. While some view them as remnants of bygone digital eras, others see their genesis—thanks to a 2007 suggestion on Twitter by Chris Messina—as a fundamental organizing tool. Having since become a mainstay across multiple social platforms, hashtags are now up for reinterpretation by Meta, with Threads serving as a testbed for potential evolution to better serve today's internet denizens.