It’s using ActivityPub. It’s interesting because Bluesky (basically, former Twitter) explicitly stated that they didn’t think AP was robust enough and created their own shitty protocol. Facebook might be one of the first traditional SNS platforms to experiment with AP. I would’ve been happier if it were Tumblr, who said they were working on implementing AP last year.
I wonder how much of the recent Twitter drama has influenced Facebook’s decision to release Threads so soon after its announcement. It’s probably going to be shit quality and just try and monopolize on people leaving Twitter but not wanting to jump to Mastodon.
Ok interesting. I need to read up more on it, I wonder what benefit Meta gets from building on or integrating with AP. Like a short term image / branding thing, or a longer play because there is some fear of what the fediverse could turn into without them.
That’s pretty much what the controversy is about. People are, rightfully, afraid that Facebook will dominate AP and eventually destroy it (akin to Google and XMPP[1]). There are also those who, also rightfully, believe that this will help adoption of the AP protocol and bring innovation into the Fediverse (maybe like podcasting and Apple Podcasts have done for RSS). Both are valid, and we as members of the community and those who develop for this space should be cautious of corporate intrusion leading the innovation.
It’s using ActivityPub. It’s interesting because Bluesky (basically, former Twitter) explicitly stated that they didn’t think AP was robust enough and created their own shitty protocol. Facebook might be one of the first traditional SNS platforms to experiment with AP. I would’ve been happier if it were Tumblr, who said they were working on implementing AP last year.
I wonder how much of the recent Twitter drama has influenced Facebook’s decision to release Threads so soon after its announcement. It’s probably going to be shit quality and just try and monopolize on people leaving Twitter but not wanting to jump to Mastodon.
Ok interesting. I need to read up more on it, I wonder what benefit Meta gets from building on or integrating with AP. Like a short term image / branding thing, or a longer play because there is some fear of what the fediverse could turn into without them.
That’s pretty much what the controversy is about. People are, rightfully, afraid that Facebook will dominate AP and eventually destroy it (akin to Google and XMPP[1]). There are also those who, also rightfully, believe that this will help adoption of the AP protocol and bring innovation into the Fediverse (maybe like podcasting and Apple Podcasts have done for RSS). Both are valid, and we as members of the community and those who develop for this space should be cautious of corporate intrusion leading the innovation.
[1] https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Great article. Thanks for sharing. Yep seems like they are coming for the 3 E’s.