If you’re reading this, chances are, you’re brand new to the idea of the Fediverse, and are just now hearing about it. Someone may have tried to explain it to you in the comments, saying “it’s like email, but social!”, leaving you no closer to deducing what it even means. Don’t worry – we’re here to help you go through the concepts, step by step, without making anything complicated.

The Basic Idea

What is the Fediverse?

The Fediverse (Federation + Universe) is an open communication network, built on top of the Web, where individual sites can talk to each other. A person on one site can follow someone else on another, and interact with them in a way that’s pretty similar to traditional social media.

An Easy Example

To make it even simpler: there was a time in the mid-2000’s where Facebook started to overtake Myspace in terms of popularity. For a while, it was common to have half of your friends in one place, and half of your friends in the other. Your Myspace friends couldn’t use Myspace to talk to their Facebook friends. There’s just no way to make those services talk to each other.

At first, this seems kind of obvious. Well, duh, of course that’s not going to work! There’s no way for either site to connect or even understand each other. But if you think about it, there’s no real reason that services can’t talk to each other. They just need a common language and shared understanding to work.

That’s basically what ActivityPub is designed to do.

Wait, what is ActivityPub?

ActivityPub is what we call a federation protocol. Federation is the way that servers in this network talk to each other, and a protocol is just the shared language they use to make sense of each other. ActivityPub is just one effort to make this thing work – there have been others in the past, like OStatus or Zot, and there are other approaches currently in use, like the AT Protocol that Bluesky uses.

Without getting too into the weeds: ActivityPub is designed around making different kinds of platforms capable of talking to each other.

Mastodon, for example, bears a passing resemblance to Twitter. Pixelfed looks a lot like Instagram. People on each platform can talk to each other and see each others’ stuff with very little friction. Mastodon users can even watch PeerTube videos from their timeline, and listen to Funkwhale music!

It turns out that this is a really powerful idea! It’s possible to tear down walls between platforms, and with this new shared understanding, talk to each other natively.

Interacting with the Fediverse from Threads

The Fediverse is a big, big world: it spans nearly 20,000+ individual servers, the majority of which connect in some way, shape, or form. It can be exciting to explore, but navigating it can take some getting used to.

Can my Threads account connect to the Fediverse?

Kind of. Fediverse integration for Threads is still in Beta, and some features only partially work with the rest of the network. What this means is that people across the network can see your posts, they can send likes back to you, and they can also comment back. Currently, your replies to those Fediverse replies don’t get sent out, but this might soon change.

Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse are capable of following Threads users that have the integration turned on, provided that the Mastodon server operators haven’t blocked Threads. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of Meta being part of an open network, and some servers have blocked Threads completely.

So, I can’t follow anyone not on Threads?

Not at the moment. Fediverse users can follow your Threads account, see and boost your posts, like them, and reply.

It’s kind of a weird choice on Meta’s part to do the integration this way, but it’s likely they wanted to prioritize broadcasting before they dug into the messier business of receiving.

Is there a way to see Fediverse replies to my post?

As of late June 2024, yes! Threads can show you some of the replies from the Fediverse, but federation doesn’t work with a number of different platforms yet. Our own server, social.wedistribute.org, runs a different platform than Mastodon, and we haven’t been able to see replies from there on our Threads account.

As a workaround for the moment, you can look up your profile on Mastodon to see the Fediverse replies. Mastodon.social currently lets you do this, and doesn’t require an account.

Copy and paste your Fediverse username into the search form on Mastodon, and your Threads account will show up!

Keep in mind, this is an imperfect solution. This view simply shows you the responses that specific Mastodon server knows about. There are a number of servers that either don’t connect to each other, or don’t keep every reply on hand.

Do I have control over which servers my posts go to?

Privacy controls on Threads are still a bit limited, but it’s possible to block specific Fediverse users under Settings > Privacy > Block Users in the Fediverse.

Currently, it doesn’t look like there’s a way to block entire servers.

Joining the Fediverse Outside of Threads

After opening up sharing with the Fediverse from your Threads account, you might be curious about trying it out for yourself.

There’s a lot of cool stuff to do – which is why a big part of our site is dedicated to writing about the subject. Here’s a handful of questions that we’ve seen from Threads users already.

Why would I want to try the Fediverse elsewhere?

There are a couple of benefits that makes the wider network worth exploring. Let’s dig in!

Greater User Control

The Fediverse typically provides more control to end users regarding what they see, who they connect to, and how they share content online.

While you are still beholden to the admin of your server and the Terms of Service there, you’re far less likely to see a company like Meta restricting your articles, if you’re not on their servers. You can do your community, your way.

Tons of Communities

As a network, the Fediverse is a medley of different platforms, communities, and mediums. There are thousands of servers connected to each other, featuring academics, researchers, authors, musicians, artists, comedians, and more.

Diverse Experiences

The Fediverse already has analogs of most popular social networks:

• YouTube ➡️ PeerTube
• Grooveshark âž¡ï¸ Funkwhale
• Twitter âž¡ï¸ Mastodon
• Instagram âž¡ï¸ Pixelfed
• Reddit âž¡ï¸ Lemmy
• VK âž¡ï¸ Smithereen
• Goodreads âž¡ï¸ Bookwyrm
• Twitch ➡️ Owncast

There are also a lot of platforms that don’t have a direct thing to compare to, like Hubzilla, Misskey, and Emissary.

A lot of people are out there building the experiences they want to see, while plugging into a network that’s constantly getting bigger. A huge selling point is that they can work together.

Unique Apps

Out of all the Fediverse platforms out there, Mastodon currently has the most mobile apps. There’s a huge amount of variety – just look at all these!

Do I have to start my own server?

You don’t! While a lot of people do end up running their own servers, it’s never a requirement for participating. There are lots of community-run servers for just about every platform in the space.

Do you have resources for Mastodon?

We do! Here’s a comprehensive guide on Mastodon, with a ton of tips and insights on how to use the network to your advantage.

I have a question not listed here!

No problem! This is a living document, and we’re here to update the list as new things get asked. Comment below, or reply to us on Threads, and we’ll send a response and update this piece!

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