Since they are federated out to other platforms, each platform decides how to use them. Some platforms will use your hashtags to categorize similar posts, sometimes making post searchable by hashtag. But the exact functionality depends on the platform that received the post.

@CWSmith hashtags in NodeBB are only relevant at the topic level — that’s just how it was designed years ago.

You’ll note that on microblogs, tags can be added on any post. While we show them, we don’t consume or index them unless they are the original post.

When you use tags in NodeBB, they are federated outward with the original post.

Hope that helps!