The short messaging service Threads from Meta Platforms has made it possible for accounts in the USA, Canada and Japan to connect to the so-called Fediverse. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg announced this on Threads. His post itself is already available in Mastodon and other related services.
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But there are still noticeable restrictions, Threads boss Adam Mosseri added in parallel: You can't “yet” see any comments from Fediverse on Threads itself. Followers from there are not yet displayed either. For the introduction, likes are added up, so the number of hearts under a post already includes those from Fediverse. To do this, users have to become active on threads and specifically switch on the link to Fediverse. Threads introduced how this works a few days ago.
With this move, Meta is opening up one of its social networks in a way that would have been very difficult to imagine not so long ago. About a year ago there were the first reports that Meta was preparing something exactly like this. The US company has been preparing the release since Threads was published in July, and after a few initial attempts, the current step is the most extensive opening to date. Given the restrictions, the connection to the Fediverse is still rudimentary, and a large part of the world is left out. It remains to be seen how long it will take until Meta makes more interactions between the services possible and when, for example, German users of threads will also be able to communicate externally.
Fediverse is a network of independent social networks that are connected via the underlying protocol ActivityPub. The largest and most well-known service in the Fediverse is Mastodon; As an alternative to Twitter, this short message service has benefited from Elon Musk's adoption of the great role model. In the fall of 2022, Twitter users flocked to Mastodon, bringing the Fediverse into public awareness. Part of the Fediverse includes the Instagram alternative Pixelfed, the Reddit alternative Lemmy and the microblogging platform Misskey. Work is also currently underway on a bridge to the Bluesky short message service; This means that the three most important Twitter alternatives could soon become compatible with each other. In addition, you will soon be able to move out of Threads and take your followers with you.
Great targets for threads
After its global release on July 5th, millions of users had logged in to Threads within hours, and the 100 million account mark was reached after less than five days. The number has continued to grow since then, but things quickly became noticeably quieter on threads. The text messaging service now has well over 100 million monthly active users. This puts the platform far ahead of Mastodon and Bluesky, both of which have a few million active users. Mark Zuckerberg's stated goal is for Threads to be used by more than a billion people. There is still a long way to go until then. What is interesting now is what consequences the connection to Fediverse has. This is viewed critically there; Meta has been trying to address concerns for months.
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