Adam Mosseri spells out Threads’ plans for the fediverse

On Friday, two days after Threads finally started publicly testing ActivityPub integration, Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared a thread on Threads detailing the company’s plans for its continued integration with the fediverse. Right now, it’s possible to follow a few Threads accounts (including Mosseri’s) from other platforms, but Meta has much bigger plans for Threads interoperability that Mosseri says will take “the better part of a year” to realize.

Here’s what’s in the works, according to Mosseri.

• Mosseri says that the Threads team wants to make it so the option to follow a Threads account on other platforms is available to “all public accounts on Threads, not just a handful of testers.”
• The Threads team wants to let replies from other platforms show up inside of Threads. “It’s a bad experience now that I have to leave the Threads app to see replies I’m getting from the broader community,” Mosseri says.
• Threads is planning to support the ability to follow non-Threads fediverse accounts. “There’s a fair amount to figure out with regards to privacy and integrity, but we’re actively working through those issues,” according to Mosseri.
• This is a key one: follower portability. “Eventually, it should also be possible to enable creators to leave Threads and take their followers with them to another app / server,” Mosseri writes. “I believe that it’s important that creators own their relationship with their audience.”