We need your help to keep this website free. You can 
Threads is testing a smaller audience for individual posts: a Friends list with room for up to 50 connections. The trial lets a user choose that group instead of making an update available to the wider app.
AllinOneDownloader illustration of a selected sharing circle, using unbranded speech bubbles and counters rather than an app screenshot.
The test is running in Ireland, Italy and Japan, according to Social Media Today's October 29 report. People elsewhere can still be included in a tester's list. Being able to read a Friends post therefore does not mean an account has received the tools to create its own list.
A selected audience still sees interactions
The report cites Threads' help guidance: recipients can see that they belong to the list, and members can see one another's usernames and interactions when they like or reply. Limiting the audience does not make those exchanges anonymous within the group.
That gives the feature a narrower purpose than an account-wide privacy change. A public update and a group update can serve different audiences without treating all followers as one readership. In the usual sense of privacy settings, the important question is which information a control limits and who can still see it.
Choose the audience before choosing the message
For a creator, a small feedback question and a public announcement need different expectations. A selected list may suit the former; it should not be treated as a route to reach every follower. That is an editorial use case, not a claim that Meta has supplied campaign tools or measured an increase in engagement.
Our earlier coverage of image sharing in Threads direct messages concerns a different way to communicate with selected people. Friends controls the audience of a post. The parental-supervision tools serve another purpose again. No wider launch date for Friends has been confirmed in the report.
