Meta's text-based conversation app Threads now allows users in select countries to share their posts to the fediverse, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on March 21.
The fediverse is a group of decentralised social networks, including Mastodon, that can communicate with each other through the ActivityPub protocol. This move is part of Meta's promise to make Threads interoperable and follows a company test conducted in December 2023.
The feature, which is currently in beta, will be available to all users with public profiles above the age of 18 in the United States, Canada, and Japan.
"We’re taking a phased approach to Threads’ fediverse integration to ensure we can continue to build responsibly and get valuable feedback from our users and the fediverse community," the company said in a blog post.
People can opt into the beta experience by turning on the 'fediverse sharing' option from account settings on their profiles. Once it is turned on, one can see likes from other ActivityPub-based federated platforms or servers appear on their posts on Threads.
People on other servers can also search for and follow the user's Threads profile, view and interact with their posts, and share their posts with anyone on or off their server.
Moneycontrol was the first to report on Meta considering making Threads, then codenamed P92, in March 2023, with plans to make it compatible with ActivityPub.
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.
With this feature, 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.
"We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms. The fediverse promotes innovation and competition by fostering a more diverse and vibrant ecosystem of social media platforms that can easily connect with a wider audience" the company said in a blog post.
That said, Meta stated that the feature does not support the ability for users to see replies or follows from people on other servers at present. Polls and posts with restricted replies also cannot be shared with the fediverse. Further, the company noted that it can't guarantee that when a person deletes a federated post on Threads, it will also get deleted on other platforms it was shared on.
However, Meta said that its goal is for diverse-enabled Threads profiles to ultimately have one consolidated number of followers that combines users that followed them from Threads and users from other servers but didn't disclose any specific timelines.
This feature comes at a time when Threads, an app designed as a direct rival to Elon Musk-owned X (previously Twitter), looks to attract more users to its platform.
In February, Zuckerberg said that Threads has more than 130 million monthly active users and the app now has more people actively using it today than it did during its initial launch peak in July 2023.
Threads had achieved 100 million sign-ups in less than five days of its launch in July 2023, making it the fastest-growing consumer product in the world. However, its usage declined significantly in the following months, partly due to the platform's limited feature set.
In subsequent months, Meta has rapidly added many missing features to Threads, including keyword search, a fully functional web application, a trending topics feature, voice posts and an edit button for all users among others. The company's recent efforts to showcase posts from Threads on Instagram and make the app available in the European Union in December 2023 have also fueled its growth in recent months.
Threads has also stated plans to make its API more broadly available to developers in June 2024, to help creators and brands manage their Threads presence at scale. This comes after the X social platform suddenly shut out all third-party apps and rolled out new API tiers to developers at significantly more expensive prices last year.
Zuckerberg expects Threads to become the next billion-user social network in its suite of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
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