Meta is working on decentralized social network ‘based on ActivityPub protocol’

Meta confirms to ‘investigate’ a separate decentralized social network, in which the sharing of text messages is central. According to Moneycontrol, the platform will use the ActivityPub protocol for this, an open source protocol that Mastodon also uses, among others.

The Moneycontrol sources say that the project is codenamed P92 and that it is not yet clear whether Meta will actually release the platform or not. Meta does confirm in a short response that it is working on a decentralized text platform. One of the sources says that with P92 users can post messages on their own and external servers, but it is not yet clear whether messages from external servers will also be visible in P92.

In addition to text messages, users must also be able to share images and videos in P92 and, in time, also leave comments. The developers are said to be planning to use Instagram’s profile feature for P92, requiring users to log in with an Instagram profile first and P92 using data from that profile for a P92 profile. After creating an account, little or no data should be shared between P92 and Instagram.

Platformer says based on sources that Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has taken leadership of P92 and that legal teams are investigating the legal frameworks and possible privacy issues surrounding a text platform.

Decentralized social media consists of various servers that can normally be set up by users themselves. Those administrators have control over what is or is not allowed on a particular server. A well-known example of a decentralized platform is Mastodon, which has grown in popularity since Elon Musk took over Twitter, although the peak has now passed.