Meta P92 is the code name of an application with which the parent company of Facebook and Instagram wants to compete with Twitter. And from what is known so far it will use the same Mastodon protocol.
Twitter is still the most influential social network on the planet, but it does not seem that its purchase by Elon Musk go slow your usage decline. Furthermore, it can speed it up since in the time it has taken it has wreaked havoc with the verification system, fired half the workforce, and failed to respond to the critical issues of hate messages, hoaxes, and misinformation.
Big tech and small startups are looking for an opportunity to capitalize on the growing flight of Twitter users looking to migrate to alternative platforms. The most interesting so far has been Mastodon, a platform for open source and free access, which is essentially a clone of Twitter in view of the user, but which works very differently since it works on a decentralized network.
Goal P92
Instagram (let’s remember owned by Meta), last December introduced a new feature called Notes that allowed users to share short posts of up to 60 characters using only text and emojis. According to The New York Times, Zuckerberg’s firm would have considered turning this function into a competitor of Twitter.
Within hours of this information hitting the internet, Meta confirmed the development in a statement: «we are exploring an independent decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there is an opportunity to create a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates on their interests.”.
The concrete development status of Meta P92 and the release date are not known. It is known that it will be branded by Instagram and will allow users to register/login to the app via their Instagram credentials and their profile would be populated with current account details, name, username, bio, photo profile, followers, etc. The app would be offered under a supplemental privacy policy and specific terms of service that mention inter-app data sharing that Meta uses with WhatsApp and all of its services.
Meta P92 would work on a decentralized network with ‘ActivityPub’ protocol which is the same one used by Mastodon and with it It will allow users to broadcast posts to people on other servers, with plans to add the ability to follow them and view content from different servers. Some of the known features include tappable links on post previews (such as Twitter), user bio, username, verification badges, images, and videos. It would also allow followers and liking, but it’s unclear if commenting and messaging features would be present in the first version.
If Mastodon has already been able to take a good bite out of Twitter, this Meta P92 could go further by taking advantage of the hundreds of millions of Instagram users and all that the Facebook parent company has.
