Due to Elon Musk’s recent controversial actions, Twitter users are once again fleeing the platform in droves, a phenomenon I like to call the “Twitter Exodus.” Seeing this, Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t sit still and rushed to bring forward the release date of his competing product. We’ll get to see it on July 6th at 10 AM.

Meta’s competing product is called “Threads,” and at first glance, it appears to be a text-based version of Instagram, inheriting all followers and followings from Instagram. “Just another mediocre product, made to look good only because of the competition…"—that was my initial assessment after a quick glance at its description.

But Threads is not that simple.

The new standalone app will be based on Instagram and integrate with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol. That will theoretically allow users of the new app to take their accounts and followers with them to other apps that support ActivityPub, including Mastodon.

According to reports, Threads will eventually integrate with the Fediverse via ActivityPub. This news has led many (ActivityPub) instance administrators to express dissatisfaction, with some outright stating that they will block Threads on their instances or initiating votes to decide whether to block it.

What is the Fediverse?

The Fediverse is a combination of “Federation” and “Universe,” and its Chinese translation is “联邦宇宙” (Federal Universe). As the name suggests, the “Federal Universe” is composed of multiple relatively independent instances. The way these instances communicate is similar to email—instances joining or leaving the network have no impact on the rest of the instances or the network as a whole. You can still communicate with everyone else on the network. Given this characteristic, it might be more accurate to call it a “Confederation” rather than a “Federation.”

By registering an account on a Fediverse instance, such as a Mastodon account, you can theoretically communicate with any account on any other instance within the Fediverse (including non-Mastodon instances like GNU Social, Friendica, Hubzilla, Diaspora, etc.).

Why the Collective Resistance to Threads?

Masto zealots: We’re open, federate with us!

Instagram: Great, we’re building a new thing to join you.

Masto zealots: Not that kind of open!

The primary reason for the collective resistance to Threads is the fear that Threads will “take over”: first, leveraging the resource advantages of a large corporation to provide a better early experience than other instances, then monopolizing content creators before severing ties with ActivityPub. Threads already has Instagram’s user base to build on, making this scenario quite plausible.

Even if the above scenario doesn’t occur, the following issues touch on the very nature of the Fediverse:

Admins who are planning on federating with Threads, what is your plan when Libs of Tik Tok sends thousands of far right users to harrass one of your users?

——@siege@octodon.social

@StarKiller Hello! Currently, Threads and the Fediverse are not yet connected, and the Chinese Mastodon instance will not immediately block Threads’ domain. However, once federation begins, if Threads is found to have an unacceptable impact on user experience (e.g., inability to control offensive speech and abuse, serving ads to external sites, not honoring remote post deletion requests, significantly increasing server load, etc.), we will consider immediately hiding or banning Threads at the instance level.

For concerns about Mastodon user data flowing to Threads, please refer to point 2 in the following post. https://m.cmx.im/@strawberry/109437505

——@strawberry@m.cmx.im

One of the design principles of the Fediverse is to grant everyone equal social power. To achieve this, some features were deliberately weakened during the design phase, even at the cost of user experience. Now, with Meta entering the Fediverse, bringing in a large number of celebrities and social media influencers, Meta could very well prioritize its commercial interests, disrupt this equality, and enhance the Fediverse’s missing features. With this advantage, Meta could provide “far-right users” with the means to attack others on the Fediverse at will.

For instance administrators, the concerns raised by the administrator of Strawberry County are almost entirely clear. Like any malicious instance, the concerns include serving ads to external sites, not honoring remote post deletion requests, and significantly increasing server load. After all, Meta is a commercial company, and if these actions maximize their profits, they are entirely possible.

Finally, there’s the issue of privacy and data flowing to Meta. Meta doesn’t have a great reputation when it comes to privacy. In fact, Meta’s current predicament is largely due to privacy issues. As for how bad the privacy situation is, these two images provide a stark contrast:

During the 2018 U.S. presidential election, Meta, then known as Facebook, was involved in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, where it obtained personal data from millions of Facebook users without their consent. This data was primarily used for political advertising, effectively influencing the election¹. The reason commercial companies can offer free services is that the value created by our data (e.g., influencing presidential elections) far exceeds the cost of developing and maintaining the product. Now, with Meta entering the Fediverse, isn’t it equivalent to giving Meta our data (posts, usernames—public but still valuable data) for free without any effort? And Meta doesn’t even need our consent.

Potential Side Effects of Resistance

What ultimately determines whether people stay or leave a platform is not flashy features or privacy policies that most people don’t read carefully, but the community the platform fosters—more fundamentally, the people on the platform.

I have to keep posting on twitter because that’s where my audiences are.

Why does Elon Musk’s erratic behavior still keep people on Twitter? It’s because of Twitter’s ace card—over a decade of user and content accumulation. The same applies to Threads—thousands of interesting people are using this service, and it’s extremely unfair to exclude them because of Meta’s issues.

Potential Benefits of Threads

Threads has generated a lot of buzz. This is clearly a boon for the average user to access the Fediverse. Think about the confusion new users face when they flood into Fediverse instances—perhaps Threads can truly make their lives easier.

The original intent of ActivityPub was to decentralize social media, much like email. Email can serve as a reference for Threads. If managed well, Threads could become a service akin to Gmail. Even as Gmail has grown, the email protocol itself has neither died nor become an internal Gmail-exclusive protocol. Instead, Gmail has made it easier for the average person to access email, lowering the barrier to entry in a sense.

Conclusion

Threads has not yet officially launched, so it’s too early to pass final judgment on its merits and demerits. At this point, Gmail is probably the best product to glimpse Threads’ future, and Threads is likely to follow a similar development path. No matter how much we analyze now, it’s all just speculation about Threads. I’m looking forward to seeing how Threads will develop. For now, we’ll just have to wait for its launch.

Further Reading

Not that kind of “Open”: A reference for this article.

Is Gmail killing independent email?: Discusses how Gmail is stifling independent email, offering a glimpse into Threads’ potential future.