With many having it up to their necks with all the crummy changes over at Twitter under Elon Musk’s rule, amid the growing push towards a new approach to social networking, Meta is looking to seize the opportunity by launching its own Twitter-like social app.

As reported by both Pltaformer and MoneyControl, Meta’s developing a new platform it calls ‘P92’, which sounds very similar to a Twitter Feed, albeit a decentralized one, aligning with the new wave Social Media push. Meta confirmed the project to Platformer through this statement:

“We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”

The Twitter Meta

The project is said to incorporate support for the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub, which would be Meta’s first step into the decentralized Social Media space. That would be a big step, with Meta, in large part, being responsible for this whole decentralized Social Media push in the first place. Given that Meta is always out to establish and lead a new trend, this presents it with the perfect opportunity to do just that.

Placed at the helm of the new app is Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri. Amid the disruption of Musk’s takeover, many have sought alternatives, with a whole bunch of Twitter copies popping up everywhere as a result. To name a few:

A key focus all of these alternative platforms has to embed the lessons learned from social networks past, which has seen some looking to institute alternative moderation systems from the get-go, to avoid the complications of bias and perceived censorship, while there has also been a bigger push towards data portability and the capacity to take your information with you to other platforms, should you choose.

The whole concept behind this new ‘Decentralized Social’ trend is a can of worms that deserves a separate piece, once more platforms also get into the shift, so we’ll stave off from checking out the intricacies involved with it. A dedicated, text-based social network sounds fairly similar, with the added capacity to integrate data from independent servers, which could potentially allow Meta to both keep stick to the shift, while also ‘compiling’ other Twitter cats-offs.

The Wrap

Since it was just recently announced by Meta, we have very little to go on. At this point, we don’t believe anyone can know exactly how it’ll look in practice. It could align with several emerging trends – and if Meta can make a functional, viable Twitter alternative, chances are people will choose to go to it over its much smaller competitors. While techies are more heavily invested in the whole decentralization push, majority of users just want something that’s at least reliably usable. If Meta can land the mark, then it could very much win out.

Sources

http://bit.ly/3Lk9eph