Instagram Threads will not share a timeline for account portability

will Instagram topics Really integrate with com. fediversealso known as the Open Social Web, to allow its users to not only interact with people on other services such as the Twitter alternative Mastodon but also to move their accounts elsewhere if they decide that Meta’s policies no longer satisfy them? Today this answer remains ambiguous. Meta cannot confirm if or when account portability features will be added to the newer social network’s roadmap and federation plans.

When reached for comment on the status of Threads’ account portability efforts, a Meta spokesperson said these plans were “top of mind” but declined to share details about the upcoming roadmap.

Meta’s decision to not currently prioritize account portability in the near term comes at a pivotal time for the tech giant. The company recently announced End of fact checking program In favor of a crowdsourced community feedback feature, similar to Feature X, along with relaxed content moderation rules. It is too Disable the system that punishes misinformation By downgrading this content across its platforms, according to a report by Platformer. These changes may prompt users to reevaluate their relationship with Meta, and perhaps consider moving their accounts to other services, something Threads said it plans to eventually allow.

At the same time, Gen Z users were so fed up with Meta’s monopoly on social media that instead of returning to Instagram Reels in preparation for the US ban of TikTok, they moved en masse to another Chinese social network, called RedNote (Xiaohongshu). ). As of this week, some 700 million TikTok users Join RedNote while simultaneously making jokes on TikTok, who sees them Farewell to their “Chinese spy”.“.

The threads were meant to signal a new direction for Meta, meaning that it would no longer try to compete with the open social network, but rather join it. Until now, there has been a lot of debate about whether or not Meta’s move to the open social network powered by the ActivityPub protocol was done in good faith. Critics have expressed concerns That Meta was simply coming to dominate the open web by quickly establishing itself as the largest Federation agent, giving it control over the future direction of the Confederacy.

However, Meta has continued to roll out various integrations with the federated system on Threads, including things like the ability to Mailed to Mastodon and See replies from Mastodon users within threads. It has also done a lot of the heavy lifting on the user education part by including guides and explanations about diversity within the Threads app And on the Internet.

However, one of the key components to becoming a unified application is adoption Possibility of transferring the account. This means that if you don’t like the way your unified server does things, you can move your account elsewhere, without losing your followers, followings, bookmarks, lists, and more.

In a December 2023 meeting Among Meta representatives and members of the Fediverse community, Meta shared that part of what prompted her move to the Fediverse in the first place was users’ concerns about the idea of ​​Meta actually “owning” someone’s followers. (Although the meeting was not recorded, community members in attendance were able to share what was discussed, as long as they did not directly quote or attribute statements to specific meta individuals.)

In a summary For the meeting, attendee Tom Coates noted that Meta said it wanted to integrate with Federation to help address users’ concerns about their social graph.

“They were looking for the ability to know that if they needed to, they could move somewhere else,” Coates wrote, though he added that that “didn’t seem like the whole story.”

In light of Meta’s massive policy change on fact-checking and moderation, this seems like a good time to check its federal agenda, since there doesn’t seem to be any sign that the company has started working on this feature.

When asked for a roadmap update regarding account portability, a Meta spokesperson was unable to confirm that the topic was even on the Threads roadmap, let alone when it was scheduled to be addressed.

Instead, they shared that account portability was “top of mind as we continue our federal integration,” and there were “no additional details about the roadmap or timing at this time.”

While Threads may still intend to eventually add an account portability feature, it stands to reason that this is not a priority as the company, for now at least, aims to keep its users on Threads. The social network has grown into what could be the largest federated application (if it is fully federated), with 300 million monthly active usersUp from 275 million in November. It also has 100 million daily active users.