Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is exploring a decentralized text-based Twitter alternative, business news site Moneycontrol reported on Friday.
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Fast facts
- According to Meta documents reviewed by Moneycontrol, the decentralized social media app, coined P92, will allow users to log in using credentials from their Instagram accounts. The app is reportedly under development.
- A report by Platformer claimed that Instagram head Adam Mosseri would oversee the project, with Meta’s legal department investigating early privacy concerns.
- In a separate report, a Meta spokesperson told tech-focused news outlet Tech Crunch that the tech giant is “exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates.”
- Since Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk took over Twitter last October, disgruntled users have searched for a substitute. One such competitor, the decentralized Twitter alternative Mastodon, amassed over a million monthly users in the weeks following Musk’s Twitter takeover.
- Mastodon is a collection of over 10,000 individual servers that create an ever-changing decentralized social media network. Meta’s new app would allow users to connect with other decentralized networks, such as Mastodon, according to Moneycontrol.
- Jack Dorsey, the founder and former head of Twitter, is also working on a decentralized social media network called Bluesky, which began allowing some users to test its iOS app in beta last week.
See related article: Mastodon is the hot new alternative to Twitter: Can it decentralize social media?