Meta launched its new app Threads on Thursday, a direct rival to Twitter. The platform has already hit over 30 million users within 24 hours of its launch and became the hottest topic on the internet.

While users have been discussing the features of Threads, they have also come across a new term ‘Fediverse’ which sounds similar to ‘metaverse’.

Users of Threads come across the mention of Fediverse in one of its initial walkthrough screens which says, “Future versions of Threads will work with the fediverse.”

Here’s all you need to know about the Fediverse:

What is the Fediverse?

Fediverse is the combination of two words, “federation” and “universe.” It is an alliance of decentralised servers, which can share data with each other like a single open network.

It is a collection of thousands of independent social media servers which communicate with each allowing users on these servers to interact with each other.

In the Fediverse, the Threads app will consist of multiple servers, each set up by individual users. This is similar to Mastodon, another Twitter-like app, and is a key difference between Threads and Twitter.

How does it work?

The interaction on the Fediverse can happen even between different types of servers that share the same protocol. If the creators of one server make their content available to another server then those servers become “federated” and can communicate with each other.

So communication between a user on a Mastodon server and someone with an account on a PeerTube server on the Fediverse is possible.

Meta plans to make Instagram Threads a part of the Fediverse using a protocol called ActivityPub, a vendor that already partners with Mastodon as per a Fortune report.

At its launch, Threads is not supporting ActivityPub but Zuckerberg had mentioned that it is in the works and it will be coming soon.

This will be the company’s first foray into open social networking.

In the Fediverse, developers would also be able to build their own features and set their own content moderation policies and standards for the servers which is seen as an attempt to circumvent anti-free speech policies as per the report.

(Edited by : Vivek Dubey)