2023-12-16 20:30:31
Since its creation in July, the new social network Threads, launched Thursday December 14 in the EU by Meta, says it wants to join the “fediverse”. We shed some light on this portmanteau word, which is about to gain popularity.
Cryptic, the sentence signed Meta raises eyebrows: “We plan to integrate Threads into the fediverse, a social network made up of different servers operated by third parties,” assures the company on the Instagram site. Threads, we know. This is the social network launched in July by the parent company of Facebook to compete with X (formerly Twitter) and which has just arrived in the European Union. But for the rest, we reread several times: the fedi-what?
The fediversity is not a news item
No typos here. The fediverse is actually a portmanteau word, a contraction between the terms “federation” and “universe”. The simplest definition of the fediverse is certainly that proposed by Quadrature du Net. On his site, the association for the defense of fundamental freedoms online describes it as a “set of social media made up of a multitude of platforms and software, where some communicate with each other using a common protocol”. Often, the ActivityPub protocol, a standard defined by the W3C, the organization responsible for protocols and guidelines ensuring the long-term growth of the Web. By using the latter, the different instances (microblogging sites, video sharing, photo sharing, etc.) of the fedivers create gateways between their respective servers allowing them to communicate with each other. For the readers at the back of the room who are still a little lost (and that’s normal), we’ll rephrase: the fediverse is a bit like the social network of social networks. A web creating links between the different sites composing it.
Concretely, thanks to it, Internet users of one social network are able to exchange with those of another without having to register on the same platform. If X and Instagram were part of this giga-web, Twitter users would today be able to send messages directly to Instagrammers. Also, if Threads actually joins the fediversary, its 100 million regular users could write to members of competing sites already present in this network, like Mastodon.
The fediver was not done this winter
The term is talked about today but is not new. Quite the contrary. “Email works like a fediver,” explains computer engineer Stéphane Bortzmeyer. How else could Gmail enthusiasts write to Yahoo Mail enthusiasts? According to the specialist, the term was popularized around 2016 with the appearance and success of another competitor to X, Mastodon. “We often tend to confuse Mastodon with the fédiverse. But no, it’s just one of the software programs among others,” he explains.
Today, in a context where “We talk about it again every time X makes a big mistake. Which frequently happens with Elon Musk,” observes Stéphane Bortzmeyer with irony. The reason ? Registered for years on the network, some Internet users sometimes wanting to leave may have felt “trapped” by colleagues are still fluttering. The fediver remedies this problem by allowing you to continue writing, from afar, to your loved ones remaining on the left site. In other words, by ensuring the “interoperability” of networks.
The fediver brings together various ideals
Interoperability, namely the ability of one platform to interact with another, has been a hobby horse of Quadrature du Net for years now. Exaggerated collection of personal data, disinformation, online hatred… Despite all the failings of certain networks, Internet users sometimes do not dare to leave. “Interoperability thus allows you to freely decide from which platform to communicate with your contacts,” defends the association. And thus to counterbalance the quasi-monopolistic power of the web giants. As it makes this interoperability technically possible, the fediverse is therefore a popular network among communities campaigning for a freer and decentralized Internet.
“What characterizes the fediverse is that it is not a single body that decides everything. It’s a set of bodies, managed by completely different people, who have no links between them,” summarizes Stéphane Bortzmeyer. The computer scientist himself has been a member of a fedivers network since 2017 called “Gougère”, run by an association in Burgundy managing local initiative digital networks. “In addition to associations, among the actors of the fedivers we also find bodies such as the European Commission or, quite simply, individuals,” he lists.
And, when it comes to moderation, each of them sets their own rules. An operation for better or for worse but which, according to Stéphane Bortzmeyer, is always more legitimate than a centralized system: “On the scale of the Internet, when you think about it, it doesn’t make sense to do a single network with unique rules. For example, American companies will tend to censor nudity more than violence, which reflects a form of American puritanism that does not apply to the entire planet. With the fediverse, everyone therefore theoretically becomes free to choose the moderation that best suits them.
The fediverse enthusiasts are freaking out
Each network and body of the fedivers is also free to pursue its own geopolitics. Because, if the woven web allows them to come into contact with each other, they retain the possibility of raising the drawbridge at any time and blocking their access to Internet users from other territories. So, for example, if X and Instagram were in the fediverse, X would have the possibility of connecting to Instagram but the latter could very well choose not to associate with it. With this in mind, Meta could well enter a schoolyard already populated with classmates refusing to speak to him.
Some members of the federation, like Quadrature du Net, fear the arrival of this champion of centralization. “The arrival of Facebook on the fediverse resembles the strategy of taking the lead, of acting while there is no supervision yet, in order to cannibalize the fediverse by taking advantage of the circumstance of the collapse of Twitter », denounces the association. Also, certain administrators of giga-network instances have already launched a “Fedipact”. The principle ? The signatories undertake to block Meta’s services from their own territory. After the fediverse, soon the fédiguerre?
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