For as long as this article is, it is remarkably free of journalism. It is basically a press release from Meta saying that they're planning to implement Threads in a few months, and don't feel like saying more about it than that.

“Do we adapt the protocol to be able to support this?” Lambert asks. “Or do we try to do some kind of interesting, unique implementation?”

This is a fascinating question, both in its lack of an answer, and in the inherent framing of the question that of course they're going to introduce incompatibilities, and the discussion is simply about how to do it.

Mastodon allows some artistic nudity

...

Additionally, specifics are still murky regarding exactly how user data will be handled after the connections between networks are established. For example, if you federate a post from Threads and decide to delete it afterwards, what happens to the cached post on the servers of the other networks?

That... is not the central question that's on people minds about how user data will be handled. Presumably you were in a position to ask Rachel Lambert, the product manager at Meta who started the company's journey towards interoperability, a more obvious and salient question, and include in your article her response.

Meta is treading carefully, doing a phased implementation while continuing conversations with Fediverse leaders.

Who are these leaders and what are they saying about this? This, also, seems like it would have been pertinent information to include. If Meta's answer was "You're not allowed to know that at present," then including that response seems like it would have made the article quite a bit more informative than simply pretending it didn't occur to you to ask for any details about this.

Are these audio only posts? That sounds like a terrible direction for the fediverse to go. We already have enough videos of people staring at their phone while talking.

Did everyone forget how to read?

Yes, I read the bit about transcription.

For example, Threads supports audio posts, a feature not currently supported within ActivityPub(...)

Laughs in Funkwhale, Castopod, and even any ActivityPub platform implementing an Audio object type

Wired checked no Meta claim against reality.

For example, Threads supports audio posts, a feature not currently supported within ActivityPub, so Meta is experimenting with “federating” a text transcription of the original post instead of the audio version.

Here we go

Fediverse leaders? Like John Mastodon?

Lots of furries in their future I’d suppose

I keep seeing people hating on the EEE crowd. Finally meta makes a move that proves we were right.

How is audio different from other media types (e.g. images, videos, etc) that it isn’t / couldn’t be supported by activity pub?

i guess ill say it again. meta hasnt modified the protocol, and the bells and whistles they feed their own users on their own instance means nothing to the rest of the 'verse. calm the fuck down

Another big, lingering question is why Meta wants to do this in the first place. Lambert says Meta wants to give users more control over their posts and followers, with easier avenues to engage across platforms.

So will they be implementing a method to export this data in ways that could be imported to other platforms? Otherwise I don't see where federation fits in here all that much.

Extending reach isn't really the same as control imo.

"Meta will play nice" the shills said.

"They won't EEE you're being paranoid", they said.

"They'll follow the standard", they said.

Besides the obvious repulsion for anything Meta, that's a novel thing to see, I'm kinda curious to see what happens with the user reception of these audio posts

Sorry for the n00b question, but how does a more “redditesque” Lemmy work with a more “twitteresque” service, and vice versa?