Twitter announced they are gradually rolling out a new way for users to discuss favorite topics, Communities. Communities are groups where like-minded people can discuss their shared interest. Joining a community is currently by invitation only and creating a community is currently limited to approved accounts.

What are Twitter Communities?

Communities are a way for people with a common interest to get together and discuss that interest.

A Twitter Community is open and visible for anyone to read what is being discussed. Also, anyone outside of the community can report the community if the community is breaking rules.

While anyone can read and report discussions in the Community, only the members of the community are able to participate in the discussions.

The announcement described it like this:

“With Communities, moderators pick the focus, create the Community rules, and invite the people who will make it a great place for conversation.

Think of Communities as places created for conversation where the vibe and tone is set by people who share the same interests and want to have relevant conversations.”

Twitter Communities is in Testing Mode

Right now the new Communities feature is being tested. It’s not a fully developed product that is ready to be used by everyone.

There are currently some communities being tested and Twitter promises that in a few months more people will be able to create communities.

Healthy Conversations

Twitter stated that Communities is a way to support healthy conversations.

But some on Twitter questioned the concept of communities, asserting that this would lead to opinion silos where everyone agrees, essentially creating an echo chamber that reinforces and hardens points of views.

So basically a political bubble where everyone agrees with you and noone gives any opposing points of view… Damn, seems like this is the death of logical thinking and helpful debates…

— Eren Polat (@ErenPolat_BJK) September 8, 2021

That is not an unreasonable view. However the Internet has a long history of forming communities around topics and still consisting of contentious
discussions about the given topic of the community.

Reddit is an example of how communities can form around a topic without becoming echo chambers of uniform opinions.

Communities organized around topics is indeed like Reddit and a member made that observation.

This is basically reddit

— Papa Deez Nutz (@papa_nutz) September 8, 2021

Moderation of Communities

Moderators have the ability to hide tweets that the break the community rules. Strangely, they don’t have the ability to remove a member.

Twitter noted the following moderator responsibilities and moderating abilities:

“Community moderators have the ability to hide Tweets that break Community rules. Members of the Community can report a Community Tweet (1) to be reviewed by a Community moderator if you believe a Community rule has been broken, or (2) to be reviewed by Twitter if you believe a Twitter Rule violation has occurred.

Non-members can also report Community Tweets they believe may have violated Twitter Rules to Twitter.

Note: We will be rolling out the functionality for Community moderators to remove members who do not follow Community rules.”

Examples of Twitter Communities

Twitter noted there are only a handful of communities at the moment.

Here are two communities that are currently live on Twitter:

Weather Community

Astrology Community

How to Create a Community

Any member with a public Twitter profile that is in good standing can join or create a community.

Because the Community feature is in a limited testing mode, potential community starters must fill out an interest form located here.

Twitter Communities

With the new Communities feature, Twitter has finally figured out a way to become more like Facebook and Reddit. A community feature provides members with a way to find like-minded individuals and discuss topics of interest.

Citations

Read the official announcement
Communities: Talk About Your Thing with People Who Get You

Communities FAQ
About Communities on Twitter