Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey chimed in on the launch of Mark Zuckerberg's Threads app, but maintained his wish that social media platforms as a whole move to decentralized protocols like Nostr. Notably, future versions of Meta Platforms Inc.'s (NASDAQ: META) newly-launched app Threads will be compatible with the "fediverse" protocol.
What Happened: Dorsey said that Meta should consider a "truly permissionless" protocol like Nostr. He also said he hopes Twitter beats Threads to the punch.
Nostr is a decentralized social network that has its roots in resistance to censorship. Short for "Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays", Nostr has been backed by Dorsey, who hopes that both Twitter and Meta's Threads adopt the protocol.
Dorsey has also been critical about Threads' privacy-invading policy - the app's listing on the App Store shows that Threads may collect data on health, financial information, location, contacts, browsing history, and more.
Using the Nostr protocol would help preserve user privacy, too, since all the data is stored locally and distributed via relays - which is how decentralized platforms work. This contrasts with centralized social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, which store all user data on central servers.
Why This Is Important: To recall, one of the key selling points touted by Threads at launch was its support for the "fediverse" protocol. More specifically, future versions of Threads will support "fediverse", allowing users from other microblogging platforms and social networks which use this protocol, like Mastodon, Tumblr, Lemmy, and others.
At its core, "fediverse" is a collection of interconnected servers used for publishing and file hosting.
Supporting open and decentralized protocols will not only help in resisting censorship, it will also allow creators to bring their audience wherever they go.
"If you decide to leave Threads one day, you should be able to bring your audience with you," Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, told The Verge in an interview.