Meta Is Developing A Decentralized Social App

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is exploring creating a new, decentralized social media network. Meta is joining a trend of other Internet firms that want to entice consumers away from struggling Twitter with competing online services.

A stand-alone text-based social media network that would allow “creators and public personalities to give timely updates about their interests” is something the firm is looking at, according to a statement from Meta spokesperson Seine Kim.

The new product investment from Meta strengthens the movement toward decentralized social media networks, where user communities rather than a single organization or website decide how the platform is run.  Businesses and media outlets have begun introducing their own decentralized social media networks recently, or they have been increasing their dependence on and integration with existing ones.

Other social media platforms strive to increase their audiences by allowing regular users and well-known creators more freedom to customize their social media experiences, while Twitter struggles to maintain its influence as one of the most significant digital public squares in the world under its new owner, Elon Musk. While civil rights organizations called for a marketing boycott in reaction to Musk’s decision to dismiss hundreds of employees and loosen the company’s content moderation procedures, Twitter advertising decreased.

According to statistics from analytics company Insider Intelligence, user growth looks to be stagnating and will likely fall by over 4% in 2023. The attempt to undermine the Twitter ecosystem is “a clever, aggressive move by [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg,” according to Dan Ives, a financial analyst with Wedbush Securities.  “I believe there is a chance to increase share as individuals explore alternatives to Twitter.

Zuckerberg is, in many respects, travelling down a road set forward by others. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey established the decentralized social media startup Bluesky, which has recently debuted in the Apple App Store. But the network is now only available to invited users. Bluesky is developing AT Protocol as part of the project, a decentralized social media network that will let people, companies, and organizations host their websites that can connect.

According to the organization, consumers would have some control over the algorithms that decide what they see and be able to move their accounts from one provider to another.  Decentralized social media networks, according to Jeff Jarvis, a professor at the City University of New York, allow individuals to broadcast their opinions directly to a large audience while simultaneously enabling them to manage their own online content consumption experiences.

Because of it, more people than ever before can speak and be heard, and Jarvis termed it a great development. How in the world are you supposed to listen to all of this? The difficulty arises, therefore, from that. Where can you find the proper people?

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter last autumn, other platforms are building on the early success that Mastodon, a seven-year-old network, saw. The design of Mastodon resembles that of Twitter, including the interface for leaving feedback and sharing it in a news feed that is strewn with hashtags. Instead of being a website run by a single organization like Twitter, Mastodon is a network of hundreds of websites, often known as instances or servers.

Although users may view postings on other servers and communicate with members of those communities, each server, which volunteers frequently maintain, has restrictions on the kind of information that is permitted on that specific instance. Several users have stated that they would want a firm to take a more active role in curating what they view after its recent rise. The inability to locate friends and relatives was another complaint made by users, who also occasionally found the program perplexing.

To give its authors access to a validated, trustworthy social media environment, online publishing company Medium said in January that it would establish its instance on Mastodon.  When the new instance launched, Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine claimed it would enable the author community to carry on its social media traditions.

In this environment, “community rules are already in place that is specifically focused on avoiding the toxicity that has afflicted other social media platforms,” he said.  ActivityPub, the open, decentralized social networking protocol that underpins Mastodon and other social media sites, appears to be being adopted by other well-known businesses for use inside their current networks.  Tumblr, a microblogging service, declared a year ago that it would accept ActivityPub. It has been rumored that ActivityPub support would be included in Meta’s upcoming social media network.

The founder of Mastodon views Meta’s acceptance of ActivityPub as “validating” and sending a “really favorable signal” for the idea of decentralized social media. Eugen Rochko stated on Mastodon, “It also tells me that they don’t view themselves as strong enough to keep users trapped inside their walled garden anymore. That indicates that social media interoperability, which has long been the objective, is now gaining traction. According to Jarvis, it’s unclear if volunteers or employees of the firm will assist in managing certain servers or communities on Meta’s new platform. Another concern is how Meta intends to profit from it.

How does the Meta P92 function?

P92 is a stand-alone text-based content app that will represent the Instagram brand, according to the news organization’s internal product brief. Users may sign up for the site and register with their Instagram credentials. Initially, users will be able to broadcast their posts to other users. It is unknown if users may follow others and read the material of other users on other servers because the platform intends to employ a decentralized structure where user profiles will be housed on separate servers.

Although these functions, along with the ability to leave comments on posts and send direct messages to users, are anticipated to be added in the future, the first release of the product may just have the basic minimum of a social network app.  Similar to Twitter, this would include a user name, bio, verification badge, and trappable links in postings that would show previews.

According to the internal brief, users who choose Instagram-based sign-ins must concur with the terms of service, privacy policy, and data exchange between the two for account information to be populated.  Following this, there will be very little data exchange between the two applications, but Meta wants P92 users to encourage their Instagram acquaintances to adopt the new platform as well.

The site also stated that all user data from Instagram is anticipated to be used by P92 for analytics and product enhancement. Meta issued a statement in which they explained how they viewed the new app as a place where “creators and public personalities may provide current updates about their interests.

edited and proofread by nikita sharma