Meta Platforms is showing off fediverse integration for Threads, the Instagram spinoff launched last summer to take on Twitter, now X. At this week’s FediForum virtual conference, Meta Platforms software engineer Peter Cottle demonstrated how users will be able to connect accounts to use the fediverse, simultaneously reaching multiple audiences. Currently, “a limited number of Threads profiles can share their posts to other fediverse platforms,” according to Instagram. In an alpha test, interactions, such as likes and replies, from other fediverse platforms “won’t be viewable on Threads.”

Eventually, all users will have the option to propagate Threads posts to the fediverse, an open social network of different servers operated by third parties that connect through a common protocol to communicate with each other.

“Our plan is to make Threads part of the fediverse,” Instagram says in its Help section, explaining “each server on the fediverse operates on its own” but can talk to other servers on the fediverse that use the same protocol.

A video from Cottle’s FediForum demo was shared with The Verge, showing him toggling his Threads “fediverse sharing” option to “on.” “Meta will then show a pop-up explaining what exactly the fediverse is, along with some disclaimers Meta will flag to users so they know what they’re getting into,” The Verge writes, providing its own fediverse explainer.

Threads users must have their profile set to public in order to turn on the fediverse feature. And “Meta warns that Threads can’t ‘guarantee’ that a post gets deleted on other linked platforms if a user decides to delete it on Threads,” which means if something is deleted on Threads it may remain visible on a linked Mastodon server.

Cottle summed that up as “a downside of the protocol that we use today,” perhaps implying it may someday change.

Meta Platforms and Bluesky are among Big Tech’s first movers in the fediverse space. Mozilla is also betting on a federated platform called Mammoth.

Threads plans to use the  ActivityPub protocol used by Mastodon and Mammoth, while Bluesky has created somethig called the AT Protocol. Under that scenario users from the two groups won’t be able to cross post.

At FediForum, Cottle “offered some insight into how Meta is thinking about its role in the fediverse,” Engadget, writes, adding that the demo is “another sign that Meta is taking the growing momentum for decentralized social media seriously.”

Related:
Threads Is Rolling Out Trending Topics to All Users in the U.S., TechCrunch, 3/19/24