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.
Threads seems worse to me because it is Meta, requires an app, and can’t be look at without an account. At least Twitter has restored visibility to people without accounts and now Twitter front ends are working again. Everything in meta has seemed to be account based with Instagram and Facebook where if someone sends me a links is usually useless since it requires a login. And I’m not creating a meta account. Even tiktok can be viewed without an accoubt or app.