Links to source articles below.
Yesterday 30 million users signed up for threads, which is already more than active users in the fediverse.
Furthermore, it seems that Meta hasn’t launched threads in the EU due to uncertainty regarding the Digital Markets Act. It is entirely possible that their intent to federate with other Activitypub instances is entirely a cheap way to avoid being labeled a gatekeeper and avoid other regulatory requirements or restrictions.
It’s future use of ActivityPub to get better publicity or scrape a bit more data might be an added benefit but not it’s true purpose.
We’ll see if launch in the EU goes hand in hand with them turning on Federation. I suspect that ActivityPub and the Fediverse are merely an afterthought to them and a convenient way to avoid being impacted by certain regulations.
Edit: Found a brief overview of the DMA. Among other things they say:
“The DMA aims to ensure the interoperability of messaging services allowing users on services like WhatsApp to send messages to users on smaller services like Signal”
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_6423
Can someone confirm this is even right? I have friends in the EU with accounts and following me. Not to mention there’s EU companies in there, like the ESA and Ryanair.
Doesn’t this mean the law is working as intended?
I guess IF the fediverse decided universally not to fed and moved the code away from threads adding features say meta did not want, then they would be seen as de-facto gatekeeper again.
Or… to prevent being accused of duplicating Twitter. Being a Fediverse instance gives Meta some cover:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/06/twitter-meta-lawsuit-threads-app-musk-zuckerberg
Scumbag company avoids regulation with underhanded tactics, by just following the regulations as intended…
