Meta is Working on Twitter/Mastodon Alternative
- Laurent Giret
- Mar 10, 2023
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Meta is working on a new text-based social network that’s also decentralized, similar to Mastodon. According to a report from MoneyControl, the app is codenamed ‘P92’, but it will use Instagram branding and users will be able to register to it with their Instagram credentials.
“We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates,” a Meta spokesperson confirmed in a statement. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”
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According to the report, the new platform will support Activitypub, the decentralized social networking protocol used by Mastodon, the video streaming service PeerTube, and other decentralized platforms. This will allow ‘P92’ to be interoperable with Mastodon and other services that also use the Activitypub protocol.
“The plan as of now is that the MVP (minimum viable product) will definitely allow our users to broadcast posts to people on other servers. It may or may not enable our users to follow and view the content of people on other servers,” a source told MoneyControl.
It will be interesting to see Meta embrace decentralized social networks after spending years building (and acquiring) walled gardens like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. These three apps all have over a billion users, but they’re currently not interoperable, with some rare exceptions: As an example, you can link your Instagram account to a Facebook profile or Page and crosspost your Instagram stories to Facebook, but that’s pretty much it as it comes to interoperability.
Instagram recently launched a new Notes feature that lets users share short posts of up to 60 characters, and many observers saw it as a timid attempt to compete with Twitter. With Elon Musk’s chaotic leadership of the blue bird company, there’s a real possibility that Twitter eventually goes bankrupt and disappears. Competitors in the social space have to prepare for this possible outcome, but could Meta’s decentralized network succeed while Mastodon continues to lose users? That’s far from guaranteed.