Meta's Threads expands its open social web rollout to over 100 countries

Threads will be Meta's first app that will be compatible with rival services, enabling users to interact with a broader community beyond the app's existing user base

Meta's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on June 25 announced that people using Threads in over 100 countries can share their posts to the fediverse starting today, as part of the social networking giant's push to make its text-based conversation app interoperable.

The fediverse is a group of decentralised social networks, including Mastodon, that can communicate with each other through the ActivityPub protocol.

Along with this rollout, Meta also announced a few improvements to this integration. People will now be able to see and like replies from other ActivityPub-based federated platforms and servers like Mastodon.

Meta notes that users can't respond to these replies as yet, indicating that the feature will likely be added in the coming months.

Threads users will now be able to see and like replies from other ActivityPub-based federated platforms or servers like Mastodon

Previously, one could only see the likes that appear on their posts on Threads. People on other platforms could however search and follow the user's Threads profile, view and interact with their posts, and share their posts with anyone on or off their server.

Threads users who are 18 years and above and have a public account can enable this feature by enabling the 'fediverse sharing' option from account settings on their profiles.

Threads' interoperability push

This rollout comes three months after Meta introduced this feature to users in select countries including the United States in March, following a company test in December 2023.

Threads will be Meta's first app that will be compatible with rival services, enabling users to interact with a broader community beyond the app's existing user base as well as have the option to transfer their content to another service in the future, thereby giving consumers more control over their data and choose online communities that align with their values.

Moneycontrol was the first to report on Meta considering making Threads, then codenamed P92, compatible with ActivityPub in March 2023.

ActivityPub is an open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that powers services such as Mastodon (social networking), Pixelfed (photo sharing), and PeerTube (video sharing) among others.

Over the past few months, several platforms and services have added or announced support for ActivityPub including WordPress, Tumblr, Flipboard, Medium, and Firefox maker Mozilla.

This launch comes on heels of the launch of Threads API, which will enable third-party developers to build tools that can extend the functionality of the platform.

The company said the API would enable creators, developers and brands to build their own unique integrations, manage their Threads presence at scale, and share content with their communities.

In May, Threads also rolled out a new TweetDeck-like interface with pinned columns to all its web users, in a bid to attract more power users to its platform. This interface lets users pin separate columns for their favourite searches, tags, accounts, saved posts, and notifications.

In April, Zuckerberg said Threads had more than 150 million monthly active users, up from 130 million in February and about 100 million users in October 2023.

The Meta chief expects the platform to become the next billion-user social network in its suite of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.