Breaking news, Threads has officially joined the fediverse! Meta announced on Thursday that their beta experience for sharing Threads accounts on the fediverse is now open to all users aged 18 and above with public profiles. This groundbreaking integration is initially available in three countries: the U.S., Canada, and Japan.
In December, the company had already revealed its plans to test this feature on Mastodon and other platforms that support the ActivityPub protocol.
To participate in the fediverse beta experience on Threads, simply go to your account settings and toggle on the fediverse sharing option. A pop-up will appear, providing an explanation of the fediverse. According to the company, it is a “social network of interconnected servers” that allows people to “follow others on different servers and engage with their content – much like how email enables communication across different services.”
Once the fediverse sharing option is activated, users on other servers (such as Mastodon) can discover your Threads profile and engage with your posts through likes, reposts, and shares. This presents a great opportunity to connect with a wider audience beyond Threads and other traditional social networking apps.
However, there are currently a few limitations. For instance, beta users on Threads cannot view responses or likes on their posts from the fediverse. Additionally, posts with polls cannot be shared. At the recent FediForum conference, Meta’s Peter Cottle mentioned in his demo that plans were in motion to rectify these restrictions.
Despite these drawbacks, it is still remarkable that Meta has made Threads a part of the decentralized social network system, especially since the app was only launched eight months ago. This move showcases Meta’s commitment to expanding its reach and providing users with a more diverse and interconnected online experience.
