Twitter begins testing Communities, a new feature for connecting people with shared interests

Twitter announced Wednesday it is testing a new feature called Communities that will allow users to talk about specific topics with others who share the same interest.

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 other members of those communities. The new feature is similar to Facebook Groups, Discord servers and Reddit subreddits.

Unlike Twitter’s competitors, however, 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, skin care and astrology, the company said. Communities will have moderators who can invite other Twitter users into their groups. Community creation will be limited at first, but Twitter said it will allow more people to create Communities in the coming months.

Twitter teased the Communities feature in February during the company’s annual Analyst Day. The new feature is part of Twitter’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.

As part of this push, Twitter last week also launched Super Follows, a feature that allows select users to charge others for access to subscriber-only content.

At launch, Apple iOS users can access Communities through a dedicated tab at the bottom of the Twitter app while desktop users will see it in a sidebar on Twitter’s website. Android users will be able to read Community tweets at launch, and the company will add more functionality “soon.”