Following the revelations of two US media outlets, web giant Meta confirmed on Friday, March 10, that it will begin developing a social network similar to Twitter, but decentralized. A project that would be inspired by both the latter and Instagram… to the point where you would use your data to make it work.
Twitter is not dead that Meta is already preparing its competitor. Friday March 10, online media Money control And Platform game revealed that the parent company of Facebook and Instagram has started developing a third social network, decentralized and based on short message sharing. Code name: P92. A project that was confirmed a few hours later by the American multinational.
This platform seems to want to benefit from the flight of hundreds of thousands of Twitter users since October 2022, following the acquisition of the social network by billionaire Elon Musk. ” We believe there is an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can update on their interests at the right time.‘, says a Meta spokesperson to the two media.
Features of Twitter in the body of Instagram
P92 is said to be in the early stages of its development, but it is still unclear whether the creation of the application has actually started, warns Money control. The online media was given access to a summary of the product intended for internal use. Among the mentioned features for P92 we find sharing of images, videos and clickable links that preview their content.
Users should also be able to reply to messages and send private messages, although these options may not be part of the first version of the app. On the other hand, Meta is not yet sure to allow” retweet» publications such as on the blue bird platform.
Verification badges would be well planned, but as the media indicates engagedmaybe they’re not free: In February, Meta followed Twitter’s announcement of paid badges by announcing its own subscription for $12 a month, verifyable on Facebook or Instagram.
Your Instagram data can feed the beast
Another detail of P92: the application of the social network would adopt the style of Instagram. You can also use your Instagram account to connect to it. Choosing this option will add your profile information to that of P92.
On the other hand, if filling data from your account then “minimal, if any“sayMoney controldoes the team dedicated to the project still want to use “the data of all Instagram users, regardless of their participation in P92 and as freely as possible for analysis, product improvement and ranking“.
Same decentralized system as Mastodon
The real difference from other Meta services is in the technology used to run P92. Like Mastodon, another social network that competes with Twitter, this new platform would be decentralized. Specifically, users will be able to host part of this social network on their own server and set their own moderation rules there.
This platform would also integrate the ActivityPub protocol used by Mastodon. Like the latter, P92 would also allow users to view member content from other servers so as not to lose Twitter’s agora effect. But according toMoney controlit is not yet known if they can track accounts hosted on a server other than their own.
Decentralized to govern better
Finally, Meta doesn’t seem to want to take too many risks for its competitor on Twitter. Only the choice of a decentralized model deviates a bit from the blue bird recipe, but even this point seems practical rather than risky for Meta.
First, the multinational is avoiding the same criticisms leveled after Musk’s takeover of Twitter about a single actor’s arbitrary control over a tool that has become an integral part of Western democratic discourse. Likewise, the decentralized model avoids Meta having to take responsibility for content moderation — an aspect the company has been criticized for a lot on its other social networks.
Meta will therefore try to take its place among the many contenders for the title of the next Twitter, but the multinational will be able to rely on Instagram’s 1.2 billion users to popularize P92. A stage that Mastodon and the other aspirants never quite reached.
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