Threads is coming up on its first anniversary, and the team has been rolling out features matching up to Twitter/X. One major promise they made is integrating it with the fediverse, allowing users to reach more people across decentralized social networks.
This began with the intial testing in late December 2023, and then an expanded test to certain markets (USA, Canada, and Japan) in March 2024. Meta has officially announced that the fediverse test is expanding to more than 100 countries worldwide. I saw the option show up here in Qatar, hence a good number of those countries will defintiely include many across the MENA region.
Reaching More ‘Thread-sters’
A brief explainer on fediverse: you know how you can email someone else from one different domain to another, regardless of domain? There’s a protocol in place for that. That’s how the fediverse will work, letting users across different decentralized networks to engage and reach more audiences. Users from other networks can follow, like, and reply to Threads posts, without having to be a Threads user. This provides more options for reach and engagement.
The backbone is the ActivityPub protocol, serving as the universal standard that allows users to connect and easily share information across indepedent servers. If you’re on another fediverse network like Mastodon and WordPress (they support the ActivityPub protocol), your Threads activity will now show up to them as well. Conversely, the Threads app will show replies and from other platforms
Just follow the below steps from your desktop browser to enable it (currently that’s how you can enable it instead of via their mobile app):
- Ensure your Threads profile is Public and you’re 18 years or above
- Go to your Account Settings via a desktop web browser in Threads
- Navigate to the Account tab
- Tap on “Fediverse Sharing (Beta)” and follow the instructions
The entire feature is opt-in, so you can easily opt out should you change your mind. Once enabled, any future posts on Threads will start showing up in the fediverse. Note that this isn’t retroactively applied to your previous Threads posts.
Since this is still in beta, there are some gotchas that you need to be aware of:
- Top-level posts and self-replies will currently be federated
- Other posts types like polls, quote posts, and posts with restricted replies are not yet supported
Fediverse going mainstream in MENA region
There isn’t much concreate data on fediverse users in the MENA region. Some may already be on it, as it’s quite a niche. In parallel, people in the MENA region look to be very comfortable sticking to the closed platforms given the volume of user activity and monetization features.
With a 150M monthly active users on Threads (previously confirmed by Meta) paired with fediverse support, the trend for decentralised social networks takes steps to gaining mainstream acceptance by web users worldwide. Hopefully, the MENA region will take notice of this and see more users embrace it.
Make sure you’re running the latest version of the Threads app on iOS/Android to start seeing it.
Header image credit: Meta
