Potus Joins the Fediverse on Instagram Threads
The President of the United States, @Potus, has joined the fediverse, a social network made up of interconnected servers like Mastodon. This move adds a boost of legitimacy to the fediverse, as the account on Instagram Threads shared its first federated post. The post was a message from President Biden’s team expressing support for reproductive freedom.
The post caught the attention of Threads users when they noticed the Threads’ fediverse sharing logo, which resembles planets orbiting a star. This logo symbolizes the interconnected universe that makes up the fediverse. While many consumers may not yet be familiar with the term “fediverse,” it is an idea that is shaping up to become a prominent part of social networking in the future.
The fediverse refers to interconnected servers running social networks that can communicate with each other. Mastodon, an open-source Twitter-like platform, is a notable member of the fediverse. Other platforms like PeerTube, Pixelfed, Lemmy, WriteFreely, and more also contribute to this social web. These services combined have around 9.9 million total users, with approximately 1.08 million active on a monthly basis. On the other hand, Threads alone has over 130 million monthly active users, making it one of the biggest nodes in the fediverse.
Meta, the company behind Threads, has embraced the technology and underlying ActivityPub protocol. It plans to federate the app so that users on Mastodon and other networks can see and respond to Threads’ users’ posts. While this functionality is still being rolled out and has some limitations, such as not being able to see replies or likes from other servers, and the inability to share posts with polls, these features are expected to be added in the future.
Despite these limitations, @Potus’ embrace of federated sharing means that President Biden’s posts will have a broader reach. They can now be viewed by users who are not already on Threads or other unfederated social apps. This move highlights the potential of the fediverse and Meta’s commitment to integrating the technology into their platforms.
In conclusion, the inclusion of the @Potus account on Instagram Threads in the fediverse is a significant step towards the mainstream adoption of this interconnected social network. With Meta’s support and the growing number of users in the fediverse, it is clear that this technology will play a prominent role in the future of social networking. As more platforms embrace federation, users can look forward to a more open and interconnected social web.