• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, March 13, 2023

Meta has confirmed that it is exploring a “standalone, decentralized social network for sharing text updates.” 

Meta believes that there is “an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” the Facebook parent said in its statement. 

The project, said to still be a work in progress, is being led by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. 

This would be Meta’s first foray into decentralized social networks, which rely on individual servers with a uniform protocol and usually allow users to form separate communities and avoid outside control of content. Twitter is the dominant player in the decentralized space. 

But Meta is also exploring integrations with Twitter as well as other decentralized social networks like Mastodon, in part by using the ActivityPub protocol, according to Moneycontrol, which first reported the news. 

Mastodon grew from 500,000 to 2.5 million active users after Elon Musk acquired Twitter in fall 2022, but its users had declined to about 1.8 million as of early January.