X shuts down Communities due to spam and low usage

X is discontinuing its Communities feature, launched in 2021, citing significant issues with spam, financial scams, and malware. The feature, intended for users to connect around shared interests, was reportedly used by less than 0.4% of users but accounted for 80% of spam reports. Many successful communities were instead used for external user acquisition. X plans to migrate users to its revamped group chat experience, XChat, which will support up to 350 members per chat and offer 'joinable' links. This move aligns with X's accelerated pace of feature releases, including Custom Timelines for Premium subscribers.