The concept of the “fediverse” is gaining more and more resonance in the digital sphere, particularly after the arrival of Threads, Zuckerberg’s new social that aspires to take over the space left nearly vacant by Twitter. This article explores the nature of this ambitious project and its significance in the context of social media.
The term “fediverse” is a fusion of “federated” and “universe” and denotes a network of federated servers, that is, independent servers capable of communicating with each other through specific communication protocols. In practice, the fediverse is a digital network designed to connect different socials, allowing users to perform actions and exchange information on one social even when they are on another.
Unlike the metaverse, the fediverse is not closely related, as the association is based only on sound similarity to the word “universe.” The idea of a fediverse is not new and has been proposed and tested since 2008, although there are few known concrete examples.
The arrival of Meta’s Threads and its implementation of interoperability protocols have resurrected the discussion of the social fediverse. This interoperability would allow cross-platform actions, allowing, for example, a Mastodon account to be used to interact with a Threads profile without being subscribed to the latter.
However, despite the promise of the fediverse, there are several obstacles and risks to consider. The platforms, run by players as diverse as Google, Microsoft, and Meta, would have to find a common agreement to implement a working fediverse, which could be a challenge considering the current differences in how they operate in isolation.
A crucial aspect is also that of privacy. Opening the door to a fediverse could make users’ content visible on other platforms, raising concerns about handling unwanted or excessive self-publications. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has emphasized the need for explicit consent from users to share their posts on “federated” platforms, but the issue of privacy remains a priority focus.
Ultimately, although the fediverse is an intriguing project, the road to its actual implementation is still a long one, and its implementation could pose a number of challenges, especially with regard to protecting user privacy.
