Threads launches with Instagram ties

Meta has launched Threads, its Instagram-linked text app, on iOS and Android in more than 100 countries. The European Union is outside the initial rollout. It gives Instagram users a new place to post, while connections to independently run social networks remain unfinished.

Illustrative file photo: Meta’s headquarters in 2022, not the Threads launch. Photo: LPS.1, “Meta Platforms Headquarters Menlo Park California” (2022). CC0 1.0. Resized; cropped; responsive crops.

An Instagram account is the starting point. Meta says usernames and verification carry across, profiles can be customised, and users can choose to follow accounts they already follow on Instagram. Existing Instagram blocks apply automatically. That provides continuity within Meta’s services; it doesn’t connect the new account to Mastodon.

Posts support 500 characters, links, photos and videos lasting up to five minutes. The feed combines followed accounts with recommendations. Meta says stronger search is coming, alongside work on ActivityPub, the protocol it plans to use for connections beyond Threads.

Two different kinds of openness

The distinction matters for developers. The W3C’s January 2018 ActivityPub Recommendation describes two separate layers: communication between servers, and a client-to-server interface through which apps use accounts. Implementations can support either layer or both. Promising federation therefore doesn’t, by itself, promise that independent apps will be able to replace the official Threads client.

Meta’s announcement describes future interaction with compatible services and a plan to let people transfer content elsewhere. Instagram head Adam Mosseri told users that ActivityPub work hadn’t been completed for launch, according to TechCrunch. Neither the announcement nor that explanation supplies a delivery date.

If federation becomes available, support on both sides will matter. Mastodon says each server operator will decide whether to allow communication with Threads. Its founder Eugen Rochko also says Threads would set moderation rules for its own platform, while Mastodon servers would keep their own moderators.

The launch therefore offers Instagram account continuity now, with cross-network connections dependent on further engineering and other servers’ participation. ActivityPub’s separate interfaces also leave a second question: which independent clients, if any, Threads will support.