Threads: Why Instagram’s Threads is a ‘clear victory’ for another Twitter-rival Mastodon – Times of India

Instagram’s Threads is now live on iPhone, Android smartphones and on the web. It is a separate app from Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram but users however can sign in using their Instagram accounts.
The Meta-owned social media platform is calling the new app a Twitter rival, however, it has the same basic concept as Twitter – follow someone, write threads (like tweets), reshare them (like retweet) and share them on other platforms, and one can share images as well as videos on the platform.So what’s different?
Threads will support the ActivityPub protocol that will make it a part of the decentralised social web. The app launched without ActivityPub support at launch and Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed ActivityPub would come in the future. The same protocol is used by another Twitter rival Mastodon.What is ActivityPub?
ActivityPub can be defined as a protocol for social media networks that enables interoperability. In simpler words, the protocol will allow people to use social media like they use email, which allows everyone to communicate regardless of the service (Gmail, Outlook, or another platform) they use.
The aim of this protocol is to give control back to users and will create a decentralised social web.
“Our plan is to make Threads part of the fediverse, a social network of different servers operated by third parties that are connected and can communicate with each other,” the company said.
Each server on the fediverse operates on its own but can talk to other servers on the fediverse that run on the same protocol.
This means that Threads will enable users to communicate with people on other fediverse platforms, like Mastodon, that the company doesn’t own or control.

Threads’ Mastodon connection
Mastodon, which became a haven for all those who quit Twitter after Elon Musk acquired it in October last year, has been advocating interoperability between platforms “for years”. According to Eugene Rochko, CEO and founder of Mastodon
Large platforms, like Threads, adopting ActivityPub is a validation of the movement towards decentralised social media. He noted that the concept “is a path forward for people locked into these platforms to switch to better providers.”
“Which in turn, puts pressure on such platforms to provide better, less exploitative services. This is a clear victory for our cause, hopefully one of many to come,” Rochko added.

What does it mean for users?
Support for ActivityPub means that Threads users can follow and be followed by people using different servers on the fediverse. Users’ content and information may be shared with those servers. Furthermore, those who have a private profile, can approve follow requests before people on or off Threads can follow them.
“Users from other servers will have the name of their server added to their username displayed on Threads (e.g. [email protected]). The servers on the fediverse are distributed and decentralised, meaning that changes on one server may not affect other servers,” the company noted.
Mastodon also works primarily through following relationships. This means that when you follow a user on another server, your server subscribes to that user specifically and not the people on that particular server.