Threads is testing collections of profiles to follow, curated by a “handful of Threads community leaders”, built around topics like fashion, food, and books
It's unclear if one day, Threads will allow any account to create starter packs — 1/2 — www.threads.net/@mosseri/pos... … Ed Zitron / @edzitron.com : Hahahahahaha wait, you can't even make your own Starter Packs on Threads? They're “curated”? Meta has no idea how social networks work and what makes them good. Broken company run by dimwits [embedded post] Matt Birchler / @birchtree.me : Bluesky continues to be the best product manager Threads has ever had 😅 — https://www.threads.net/@mosseri/post/ DDfPItEv7T8?xmt=AQGz-j7922-ea6JlhP7H_ IlfXAyrA2UZXYsWYbM3ENBBxw @durumcrustulum.com : they stole Starter Packs [embedded post] Laura Olin / @lauraolin : It's so cute how they're like “just testing this lil thing we dreamed up, who knows if it'll work!!” when it's a clear clone of another network's wildly successful product [embedded post] Mastodon: Joe Rosensteel / @joesteel@duck.haus : I know that people wish there was “one place where everyone was” (which wasn't really as true of Twitter as people like to think) but we've had more innovative stuff happen because of Threads and BlueSky competing than we had in the years of Twitter's dominance. … Threads: Adam Mosseri / @mosseri : 🔔🧵 Testing a way for you to find and easily follow collections of profiles that post about popular topics on Threads. These will be suggested when signing up for Threads and within the For You feed. Shoutout to the handful of Threads community leaders who curated and shared these collections. … Anuj Ahooja / @quillmatiq : I know a lot of folks are saying this should be available to all users, and I hope it is one day. But if you've seen them on Bluesky you'll understand how easy it is to get wrong and how much work it is to get right. Bluesky's version is, as even they'll say, unfinished. There's too many ways to misuse this to launch it as quickly as possible. It requires new consent settings, notification pipelines, and moderation tools among other things. Some features need time to cook. Adam Mosseri / @mosseri : That's the plan. These collections are just the first step — more to come soon. Alexander B. Howard / @digiphile : I see @meta recreated Twitter's Suggested User Lists, starting with a small group of people. It's sometimes feels they learned nothing from the last decade & reject an open social web, where everyone can make lists or suggest subject-matter experts. … @guillecummings : A few things I suggest to @mosseri & co, which I suggested over at Bluesky in regards to their starter packs as well, to make these a good experience: 1. Let people opt out of being added to starter packs. 2. Let people remove themselves from starter packs. 3. Let people be notified when they are added to any starter pack. Nycole Hampton / @nycolehampton : So like bluesky's lists or starter packs? Hopefully users get to create these and it doesn't turn into a popularity contest with the @threads team just putting “creators” in lists. We're all adults here and don't need threads dad making lists for us. … Jack Benjamin / @jackcarterbenjamin : It's amazing how consistently Meta copies its competitors rather than developing new ideas for its products on its own. Anuj Ahooja / @quillmatiq : Oh, hello there, Starter Packs 👀 Love how we're seeing both @bluesky_social and @threads quickly launching features to better compete with each other. We were never meant to have just one platform from one company that controls all the innovation. This is what a healthy ecosystem looks like, and we can and should have so many more in the space. Romit Mehta / @theromit : Starter packs are here* *In testing, so I'll prolly see it mid-2026 :-) Matthew Facciani / @matthewfacciani : Please give individual users the option to create their own follow lists instead of keeping it to a handful of internet celebrities.
Context & Ripple Effects
Threads initially imported users' Instagram social graphs, but related coverage has since shown it adding topic-level discovery tools: custom feeds for profiles or topics and the ability to make a chosen feed the default. Curated follow collections extend that effort from controlling what users read to helping them decide whom to follow.
The move also addresses a documented difficulty attracting influencers amid Threads' text-first positioning and unclear user purpose. By assigning community leaders a curation role, Meta is testing whether trusted human recommendations can make topical communities easier to enter.
First-order effects
- New or lightly connected Threads users can receive topic-specific sets of accounts to follow, rather than assembling a network entirely through search, feeds, or imported Instagram connections.
- A small group of community leaders gains distribution influence over which fashion, food, and book profiles are surfaced; creators included in a collection could receive more relevant follower discovery.
Second-order effects
- Threads' existing custom-feed tests become more useful if curated collections seed those feeds with accounts users actually want to track, strengthening the platform's onboarding and retention loop.
- Because the test is limited to selected curators, the quality and perceived fairness of recommendations become central: creators outside those networks may press for broader access or clearer inclusion pathways.
Third-order effects
- If Threads expands creator-made collections, social-graph building could shift toward portable, topic-based recommendation layers rather than relying chiefly on platform ranking or imported follower lists.
- The broader competitive question is whether large social platforms can combine centralized quality control with community-led discovery; the answer will shape who controls audience distribution and how transparent that control must be.
The trend: Social platforms are increasingly competing on tools that help users construct interest-based networks, not only on algorithmic feeds that rank content after the fact.