Our plan is to make Threads part of the fediverse, a social network of different servers operated by third parties that are connected and can communicate with each other. Each server on the fediverse operates on its own but can talk to other servers on the fediverse that run on the same protocol. We plan for Threads to use a protocol called ActivityPub to talk to other servers that support this protocol.

Our vision is that Threads will enable you to communicate with people on other fediverse platforms we don’t own or control. This means that your Threads profile can follow and be followed by people using different servers on the fediverse. Your content and information may be shared with those servers, for example, if you interact with content from other servers or if you have followers from other servers. If you have a private profile, you can approve follow requests before people on or off Threads can follow you. Users from other servers will have the name of their server added to their username displayed on Threads (e.g. someone@someserver.com).

The servers on the fediverse are distributed and decentralized, meaning that changes on one server may not affect other servers. Because of this, changes you make to your posts will affect how they appear on Threads, but may not change how it shows up on other servers. For example, when you delete a post, it’ll no longer be visible on Threads and Threads will ask other servers to delete it, but the post may still be visible on other servers that Threads doesn’t control. You can learn more about privacy in the fediverse in the Threads Supplemental Privacy Notice.