“Welcome to the Fediverse: POTUS Joins Instagram Threads!”

The account operated by Biden’s team published a message regarding the president’s support of reproductive freedom on Threads, Meta’s up-and-coming Twitter/X competitor. Soon after, Threads users noticed that his post sported a Threads’ fediverse sharing logo — a circular shape that resembles planets orbiting a star, which gives a sense of the interconnected universe that makes up the fediverse. When Meta introduced Threads, its text-focused Twitter/X competitor, the company said it planned to federate the app so users on Mastodon and other networks could see and respond to Threads’ users posts. Late last year, Threads began testing that integration and, in March, it opened up fediverse sharing to Threads users in beta. For example, at present, Threads users can’t see who replied or liked their posts from other servers and can’t share their posts with polls.

The Fediverse, a network of interconnected servers including Mastodon and other social platforms, recently gained credibility when the @Potus on Instagram Threads shared its first federated post on Tuesday. The account, run by President Biden’s team, posted a message promoting reproductive freedom on Threads, Meta’s upcoming rival to Twitter and other social networks.

Users were quick to notice the Threads’ fediverse sharing logo on the post, a circular shape representing planets orbiting a star, illustrating the interconnected world of the Fediverse.

Although the terminology may be unfamiliar to many, the Fediverse is becoming increasingly important in shaping the future of social networking. This is especially true with Meta’s adoption of the technology and ActivityPub protocol.

In short, the Fediverse refers to a collection of servers running social networks that can all communicate with each other. Popular members of the Fediverse include Mastodon, a Twitter-like service, as well as PeerTube (a video-sharing platform), Pixelfed (an Instagram alternative), Lemmy (a discussion forum software company), WriteFreely (a publishing platform), and others.

Together, these services make up a “social web” with a total of 9.9 million users, 1.08 million of which are active monthly. For comparison, Meta’s Threads has over 130 million active monthly users, making it one of the largest nodes in the Fediverse.

When Meta launched Threads, they stated their intention to federate the app so that users on platforms such as Mastodon could see and respond to Threads’ posts. This integration was recently tested and rolled out in beta, allowing Threads users to share posts with the Fediverse.

While there are still some limitations, such as not being able to see replies or likes from users on other servers and not being able to share polls, these features will be added in the future.

The inclusion of federated sharing on @Potus’ account means that President Biden’s posts will have a wider audience, as they can now be viewed by users on Threads, X, and other unfederated social apps.