When Meta launched their new Twitter competitor Threads on July 5, they said that it would be compatible with the ActivityPub protocol, Mastodon, and all the other decentralized social networks in the fediverse “soon”.
But on July 14, @alexeheath of the Verge reported that Meta’s saying ActivityPub integration’s “a long way out”. Hey wait a second. Make up your mind already!
From the perspective of the “free fediverse” that’s not welcoming Meta, the new positioning that ActivityPub integration is “a long way out” is encouraging. OK, it’s not as good as “when hell freezes over,” but it’s a heckuva lot better than “soon.” In fact, I’d go so far as to say “a long way out” is a clear victory for the free fediverse’s cause.
I personally believe that Meta never intended Threads to be support Activitypub and just chose it so they could do the bare minimum to comply with the EU digital markets act.
Given how evil they are, this definitely seems plausible (although threats isn’t available in the EU and they are actively preventing usage in the EU). Another option is that they’re still out to kill the fediverse. That one honestly seems more likely to me, given how they’ve acted in the past (buying up platforms before they could outcompete them).
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I mean, this is my area of expertise. Sure, it’s speculation, but it’s educated speculation. I’m intimately familiar with activity pub and the way large projects are brought into existence
Plus, following my recommendation if I’m wrong would at most be a slight amount of wasted effort, but ignoring it if I’m right could be a huge problem.
I’d call that helpful