Can Meta’s Threads Power the ‘Fediverse’ into the Mainstream?

Tucked away in Meta’s earnings report last week was some big news about an emerging technology. No, not the metaverse — rather, the fediverse. 

In a call with investors, Mark Zuckerberg said Threads (Meta’s X/Twitter clone) was approaching 200 million users. That may be small potatoes compared to Meta’s flagship platforms, but it’s a big deal for the federation of decentralized but interconnected social networks — dubbed the fediverse — that Threads is part of. And what they used to say about the metaverse they’re saying about the fediverse: It’s the future of the internet. 

He’s a Fed

For the uninitiated, the fediverse is essentially a collection of social media platforms all built on the same technology — a protocol called ActivityPub — making them interoperable. For instance, Threads users can see posts made on other platforms (like fellow ActivityPub-based Twitter alternative Mastodon), and vice versa. But interoperability is only part of the sales pitch. ActivityPub also disentangles users from specific platforms. Simply put, a user’s friends, followers, and connections can follow them from platform to platform. Hate Facebook’s user interface, algorithmic recommendations, or data-collecting policies, but don’t want to start over on a new social network? The fediverse promises to fix that problem, freeing users to shop for the platforms that suit them best. 

“This is an opportunity to build a social media universe that is truly diverse, wild, open, and not under any one company’s control,” Nathan Schneider, assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, told The Daily Upside. Schneider likened the fediverse’s approach to social media to the current state of email: Many companies offer services built on the same open protocol, and users are freely allowed to message across them.

Some say the fediverse takeover may be coming sooner than most would think:

• Tumblr, Medium, Flipboard, WordPress, and other platforms have all integrated ActivityPub in one form or another, meaning you may be sitting on the precipice of the fediverse without even realizing it. 
• Additionally, billionaire Frank McCourt has spent the year cobbling together an investor group to make an acquisition offer for the soon-to-be-banned TikTok, with a promise to place its 170 million US users on an ActivityPub-esque open protocol.

The Long Game: Robert Hodgins, manager of the Sand Hill Road Technologies Fund, told The Daily Upside that increased regulation of large platforms could push the internet toward the fediverse and its more user-oriented approach to privacy and data. Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s founder who now runs both Instagram and Threads, agrees. “The fediverse is a long-term bet,” Mosseri told the tech-focused newsletter Platformer earlier this year. “I do believe the world is going to become more open over time.”