By Julian Castillo
X confirmed that he will end the Communities (Communities)a feature launched in 2021 to group users with common interests, because it ended up becoming a little-used tool and very problematic to moderate. The usual idea was good, but in practice the feature did not take off and accumulated too much spam, scams and unwanted content.
We’re going to be investing carefully in XChat.
Communities had a gargantuan imaginative and prescient, however they earn been outmoded by much less than 0.4% of customers—but contributed to 80% of spam experiences, monetary scams, and malware on X. It occupied half of the crew’s time some weeks, whereas the remainder of the app suffered.…
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 23, 2026
X closes Communities due to low usage
The decision comes with a fairly direct explanation: less than 0.4% of users used Communities, according to X product manager Nikita Bier. At the same time, that section concentrated 80% of spam, financial fraud and malware reports on the platform. In other words, it was a function that consumed resources, generated internal work, and contributed very little in terms of actual adoption.
That helps to understand why X prefers to close the service rather than continue trying to rescue it. The company believes that Communities stopped fulfilling its usual purpose and became more of an operational burden than an advantage for the social network.
What will happen to the Communities of X?
X will disable Communities on May 6, 2026 and, until that date, administrators will be able to migrate their members to another option within the platform. The alternative that the company is pushing is XChatits group chat system, which will allow public links to join and chats of up to 350 members for now.
The move aims to move the conversation towards a format that is simpler, faster and more aligned with how content is consumed today within
Beyond the closure, this move fits with a broader strategy: X is betting on group chats, custom timelines and new features with more speed than before. The platform wants to prioritize formats that generate more direct interaction and less friction for the user, something that today seems more useful than maintaining thematic forums with little movement.
There is also a fairly clear underlying message and that is that X wants to clean house and focus on products that do have traction. If a feature is used so little and, furthermore, becomes a magnet for spam and abuse, the most logical way out for the company is to turn it off and push the audience towards another format.
In terms of product, the decision makes sense. In terms of community, it leaves a bittersweet feeling: X tried to create a space similar to subreddits or thematic groups, but the proposal never caught on with the majority. Now the platform prefers to insist on a lighter version that is probably easier to monetize and control.
X closes Communities because almost no one used them and because they became a huge source of spam, fraud and malware. The function will disappear on May 6 and will be replaced by group chats within XChat, in a new commitment by the social network to more active and less complicated formats to manage.
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