Meta מציג תצוגה מקדימה של 'שיתוף הפדיורס' עבור Threads

Mate continues its slow march towards compatibility with the fediverse. The company has been experimenting with turning posts into threaded accounts since the end of last year. Now, a brief preview of how the integration works and how it might look once more people have the ability to share from Threads directly to the fediverse.

Instagram engineer Peter Cottle presented a short slideshow on "Threads in the Fediverse" at , a virtual event for social media enthusiasts in the distributed space. In the demo, Cottle explains how Threads users can join the fediverse sharing and offers insights into Meta's role in the fediverse.

In a brief demonstration video, firstly by The Verge, Cottle introduces a new account feature called "Sharing in the Fediverse". As the name suggests, the menu will allow users to make their posts viewable on Mastodon and other platforms using ActivityPub. It appears to come with lengthy disclaimers detailing exactly what this means for their content.

"I think it's quite complex for Threads because we have about 130 million users using it every month, but many people haven't heard of the fediverse," said Cottle. "But we want to give them the ability to enter such an experience. So we need to explain both the fediverse and all the nuances and then ensure they feel good about the outcome."

Visually, the fediverse will be presented in Threads by an icon that looks a bit like a comet (the symbol is already in the code in the app). Cottle explained that users who activated sharing in the fediverse will see the icon on their profiles and they will see an indication by the app creator if a post will be visible on the fediverse. Cottle also confirmed that only public-facing accounts will have the ability to share with the fediverse. He also mentioned that users will have a 5-minute window before posts go live to make changes or edits as Threads cannot guarantee that a deleted Threads post will also be deleted from the fediverse.

The demo comes as Meta has started adding more accounts to its fediverse sharing experiment. Currently, Mastodon users can follow Instagram head and a bunch of other Threads users, but the company has not provided an update on when the functionality will be more widely available. Cottle's demonstration also did not delve into how sharing from Mastodon and other ActivityPub supporting services into Threads might work. (Currently, if a Mastodon user replies to a Threads post, the reply is on Mastodon, not on Threads.)

But Cottle's presentation is another sign that Mate is taking the decentralized social media momentum seriously. "I know there are a lot of concerns about Threads entering the fediverse, that's completely understandable," said Cottle. "But I do want to argue that I think everyone in the team has really good intentions. We really want to be really good friends in the community and give people the ability to experience the fediverse and the power of the protocol."