Platform X is shutting down Communities , citing the fact that the feature, launched in 2021 as a space for user interaction based on interests, was underutilized, difficult to manage, and inundated with spam.
X Product Head Nikita Bier said that the underused feature was actually a breeding ground for spam, fraud, and malware distribution on the platform.
"The community has a great vision, but it's used by less than 0.4 percent of users, yet it accounts for 80 percent of spam , financial fraud, and malware reports on X," he said, as quoted in a TechCrunch broadcast.
The handful of Communities that still survive, he said, are mostly used as audience acquisition channels for creators outside of X or paid clip-making communities.
In other words, Communities are often not used for their original purpose, but rather as a means to drive traffic to creators' content outside of platform X.
The Community feature on platform X will be shut down starting May 6, 2026. Community admins are given time to move their members to the new chat group feature.
The company has extended the Community member migration deadline to May 30, 2026.
To accommodate the influx of X Community members, the XChat messaging service in the app will support “followable” links for group chats.
The public link can be shared and embedded in the X timeline with a capacity of up to 500 members and plans to increase to 1,000 members in the next few weeks.
Additionally, X launched the Custom Timelines feature for Premium subscribers.
This feature allows users to pin a number of custom topic feeds on their home tab that are personalized based on how they interact with X.
