Threads expands Live Chats features and access

On Tuesday, Meta announced a series of updates to its recently launched Live Chats feature on Threads. The company is expanding the ability to start these real-time conversations to all “Community Champions.” Threads defines this specific user segment as highly engaged users who are highly followed within their communities, regularly post in those communities, and keep conversations active. To make these discussions more accessible to users around the world, Threads is also introducing built-in translation support.

The update introduces several new management tools designed to help hosts moderate and run their chats more effectively:

• Co-hosting capabilities: Hosts can now invite up to three co-hosts into a Live Chat. This feature is designed to make it easier to manage conversations, providing additional voices to help moderate or participate in the discussion.
• Active participant limits: Up to 150 participants can actively send messages, photos, videos, links, and emoji reactions in a single chat.
• Spectator mode: Once the active participant limit is reached, additional users can still join the chat in a view-only “spectator” mode. This mode allows them to view the conversation, react to messages, and participate in polls without actively sending messages.
• Message control: Hosts can now delete messages for everyone in the chat, and the platform is testing ways to make host messages appear more visually prominent.

This push for real-time engagement comes as Threads continues to expand its user base. Earlier this month, the platform reached 500 million monthly active users, nearly three years after launching as a competitor to X. The introduction of features like Live Chats represents an effort to build out real-time conversation capabilities, an area where the platform has historically sought to compete with X but previously struggled to establish a strong foothold.

Looking ahead, Threads noted that desktop support is coming soon and pinned messages are in the works. Both features have been highly requested by creators on the platform as Meta seeks to further differentiate Threads from its competitors and address user feedback.

Why it matters

The updates to Live Chats, including translation support and expanded access for ‘Community Champions,’ are designed to differentiate Threads as a destination for real-time engagement. This represents a direct push into a category where the platform has previously struggled to compete with X.