Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko applauds Threads’ entry into the decentralized social media space, saying the move will make Mastodon — the open source Twitter/X competitor — “a far more attractive option.” Mastodon’s app, which is powered by the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub, has gained traction in the aftermath of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, a network that has since been renamed X to reflect Musk’s ambitions to transform the microblogging platform into an all-encompassing app that includes creators, payments, video, live audio, and shopping.
Those dissatisfied with Twitter’s changes have looked into alternative platforms such as Mastodon, an open source alternative, as well as challengers from other startups such as Spill, Spoutible, Post, Bluesky, and others. Things have shifted yet again with Instagram’s entry into the “Twitter clone” space. Now there’s a Twitter alternative that has Meta’s massive resources behind it, which has helped it grow to nearly 100 million monthly active users in just three months. In comparison, Mastodon has only 1.5 million monthly active users.
More importantly for Mastodon, Meta committed to integrating Threads with ActivityPub, which means users will be able to find and follow users on both Mastodon and Threads. While many expected the integration to be delayed until early 2024, Meta surprised everyone yesterday by announcing that it would begin testing ActivityPub integration.
“Making Threads interoperable will give people more choice over how they interact and it will help content reach more people. I’m pretty optimistic about this,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a post on Threads.
Zuckerberg did not explain how the integration would work, but Rochko clarified the situation in a Mastodon post, saying that federation — the connection of Threads to a larger group of servers running decentralized social apps — was “one-way for now.” That means Mastodon users can follow “a few selected” Threads user profiles, such as Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, on Mastodon, but not the other way around.
Before the integration went live, Threads users’ Mastodon profiles were not backfilled with their older posts. Instead, posts from this point forward will be displayed in the profiles, with a message informing you that “older posts from other servers are not displayed.” A link to “browse more on the original profile” will redirect users to Threads.
Rochko has previously stated, “The fact that large platforms are adopting ActivityPub is not only validation of the movement towards decentralized social media, but a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers.”
The Mastodon founder also dismissed fears that Meta’s entry would result in a “embrace-extend-extinguish” scenario for the ActivityPub protocol, referring to how large corporations enter markets with existing standards, then extend those standards with proprietary capabilities to squash competition.
“…even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now,” Rochko pointed out in a blog post this summer.
Rochko described the integration as “exciting” and “huge for Mastodon,” writing in a post on the platform that it’s a “step towards the interoperable social web that we’ve been advocating for.”
Furthermore, he points out that having access to all Threads users from a Mastodon account makes the app more appealing, given its other benefits.
Mammoth, a Mastodon third-party client backed by Mozilla, believes its app will offer a competitive user interface that will be more approachable for newcomers to decentralized social media, as well as a viable alternative to Threads, including for users who do not want to create an account with Meta. While Threads has distanced itself from news, stating that it will not “amplify” news on its platform, Mammoth has embraced news partnerships and curation, which it believes will appeal to those who have abandoned Twitter/X for other apps.
With Threads’ integration into Mastodon’s ecosystem, users will have more options for engaging with Threads users and content, including accessing those accounts from their preferred app.
