Instagram Threads will not share a timeline for account portability

Will Instagram threads really integrated with the fideiversealso known as the open social web, to allow its users to interact with people on other services like Mastodon and to move their account elsewhere if they decide that Meta’s policies are no longer to their liking ? Today the answer remains murky. Meta cannot yet confirm if or when account portability features will be added to its roadmap and federation plans for the new social network.

Reached for comment on the status of Threads’ account portability efforts, a Meta spokesperson said those plans were “top of mind,” but declined to share details about the road ahead. .

Meta’s decision to not currently prioritize account portability comes at a crucial time for the tech giant. The company recently announced end of its fact-checking program in favor of a crowdsourced Community Notes feature, similar to X, alongside relaxed content moderation rules. It is also disable a system that penalizes misinformation undermining that content on their platforms, according to a Platformer report. These changes could prompt users to reevaluate their relationship with Meta, and possibly consider moving their accounts to other services — something Threads said it eventually plans to allow.

At the same time, Gen Z users are so tired of Meta’s monopoly on social media that instead of turning to Instagram Reels in preparation for TikTok’s US ban, they’ve moved en masse to a another Chinese social network, called RedNote (Xiaohongshu). ). From this week, some 700,000 TikTok users joined RedNote while simultaneously making jokes on TikTok, which sees them farewell to his “Chinese spy.”

Threads was intended to signal a new direction for Meta, in the sense that it no longer tries to compete with the open social web, but rather joins it. To date, there has been much discussion about whether Meta’s move into the fediverse, the open social web powered by the ActivityPub protocol, was done in good faith, however. Critics have expressed concerns that Meta was just coming to dominate the open web by quickly establishing itself as the largest federated client, giving it control over the future direction of the fediverse.

However, Meta has continued to roll out many integrations with the fediverse on Threads, including things like being able to cross-post to Mastodon and see replies from Mastodon users in Threads. It also does a lot of the heavy lifting on the user education side by including guides and explainers about the fediverse in the Threads app. and on the web.

However, one of the key components to becoming a federated app is the adoption of account portability. This means that if you don’t like the way your federated server does things, you can take your account elsewhere, without losing your followers, following, bookmarks, lists and more.

In a December 2023 meeting between Meta representatives and members of the fediverse community, Meta shared that part of what prompted his move to the fediverse in the first place was user concern about the idea that Meta “owns” effectively someone’s followers. (While the meeting was not recorded, community members who attended were able to share what was discussed, as long as they did not directly quote or attribute statements to specific individuals from Meta.)

In a summary of the meeting assistant Tom Coates noted that Meta said it wanted to integrate with the fediverse to help address user issues on its social graph.

“They were looking for the ability to know that if they needed to, they could move elsewhere,” Coates wrote, but added that “it didn’t feel like the whole story.”

In light of Meta’s massive policy change on fact-checking and moderation, it seemed like a good time to check out their fediverse agenda, as there doesn’t seem to be any sign that the company has started working on this. function

When asked for an update on the roadmap regarding account portability, a Meta spokesperson could not confirm that the topic was even on the Threads roadmap, let alone when it was to be addressed.

Instead, they shared that account portability was “top of mind as we continue our federative integration,” and there were “no additional details on the roadmap or timing at this time.”

While Threads may very well intend to eventually add a portability function of the account, it is reasonable that it is not a priority because, for now, at least, the company aims to keep its users on Threads. The social network has grown to become what would be the largest federated app (if it were fully federated), with 300 million monthly active usersfrom 275 million in November. It also has 100 million daily active users.

This story was updated after publication with the correct number of TikTok users joining RedNote, which is 700,000, not 700. millions.