Instagram Threads will not share a timeline for account migration

the will Instagram themes really integrates with fediversealso known as an open social network, allowing its users to not only connect with people on other services like Twitter alternative Mastodon, but also to move their accounts elsewhere if they decide Meta’s policies are no longer to their liking? Today, that answer remains obscure. Meta cannot yet confirm if or when account portability features will be added to the roadmap and federation plans for the new social network.

Reached for comment on the status of efforts to migrate the Threads account, a Meta spokesperson said those plans were “in mind,” but declined to share details about the roadmap ahead.

Meta’s decision not to prioritize account portability in the near term comes at a crucial time for the tech giant. The company recently announced the end of the fact-checking program in favor of an X-like crowdsourced Community Notes feature, along with relaxed content moderation rules. This too disable the system that punishes disinformation By taking this content down on their platforms, according to Platformer’s report. These changes could prompt users to reevaluate their relationship with Meta and possibly consider moving their accounts to other services — something Threads 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 TikTok ban, they switched en masse to another Chinese social network called RedNote (Xiaohongshu). ). Some from this week 700 million TikTok users who saw them joined RedNote while making simultaneous jokes on TikTok saying goodbye to his “Chinese spy”..”

Threads was meant to signal a new direction for Meta, in that it would no longer try to compete with the open social network, but instead join it. To date, there has been much debate about whether or not Meta’s move to fediverse, an open social network powered by the ActivityPub protocol, is in good faith. Critics expressed their concerns that Meta was simply coming to dominate the open internet by quickly establishing itself as the largest federation client, giving it control over the future direction of the fediverse.

Still, Meta Threads continued to roll out many integrations with fediverse, including being able to do so. Switch to Mastodon and See replies from Mastodon users in Threads. It’s also done a lot of the heavy lifting on the user education side by including guides and explainers about fediverse within the Threads app. and on the internet.

However, one of the key components to becoming a federated application is adoption account transfer. This means that if you don’t like how your federated server works, you can delete your followers, followers, bookmarks, lists, etc. you can take your account elsewhere without losing it.

a December 2023 meeting Among Meta representatives and members of the fediverse community, Meta shared that part of what led to his move to fediverse was users’ concerns about the idea that Meta was effectively “owning” someone’s followers. (Although the meeting was not recorded, community members who attended were able to share what was discussed as long as they did not directly quote or attribute Meta to specific individuals.)

a summary Tom Coates, who attended the meeting, noted that Meta wants to integrate with fediverse to address users’ concerns about their social graphs.

“They were looking for the ability to know they could relocate if they needed to,” Coates said, adding that it “didn’t feel like the whole story.”

In light of Meta’s massive policy change regarding fact-checking and moderation, it seemed like a good time to check out its broader agenda, given that there’s no indication that the company has begun working on the feature.

When asked for a roadmap update on the account move, a Meta spokesperson could not confirm that the thread was even on the Threads roadmap, let alone when it was supposed to be discussed.

Instead, they shared that the account migration is “a focus as we continue our seamless integration” and that “there are no additional details on the roadmap or timing at this time.”

While Threads still intends to eventually add an account portability feature, it argues that it’s not a priority because, for now at least, the company aims to keep its users on Threads. The social network has grown to become the largest federation application (if it was a full federation) 300 million monthly active users275 million in November. It also has 100 million daily active users.