Threads & the Fediverse. What are Meta's plans?

The launch of Threads

In July 2023 Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram & Twitter has launched a X/Twitter like social network called Threads in the US. Since mid December Threads is also available in Europe.

Twitter alternatives.

Threads looks a lot like X/Twitter. And given the status and reputation of X after Elon Musk took over it is no surprise others are trying to fill the gap by creating a competitor. Meta is not the first. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey created BlueSky and in 2016 Eugen Rochko had already created Mastodon, an open & federated social network. And as Mastodon is part of a larger federated initiative we talk about the Fediverse or SocialWeb.

The Fediverse

The Fediverse is different from the big social networks. It's based on 1000s of servers, often managed by volunteers and they can all set their own rules. But information is exchanged between the servers, so you can communicate with people on other servers and follow them. Actually it is a bit like email. If you know the email-address you can communicate even if you are on completely different email providers. The idea behind the Fediverse is similar to the original internet. A free exchange of information, not dominated by big companies or by commercial interests. And as we all know the current picture of the internet is not like that, it being dominated by large, for-profit companies.

Meta & the Fediverse.

So when Meta announced their plan to integrate Threads with the Fediverse, a lot of people were surprised. Aren't these two completely different worlds? And why would Meta do this? And Meta & Threads being much larger than Mastodon or the Fediverse aren't they going to be a threat to the Fediverse? Meta has not been very clear on their motivation for joining the Fediverse. I am curious to know if this is a bad or good thing. Reading and thinking about it, I think there are pros and cons.

Pro: a large userbase

A pro is the big userbase that Threads is addressing. If even a small percentage starts communicating with people on Mastodon, you are already increasing the reach enormously. Another pro…