Threads siphoned off user attention by flooding news outlets with press releases. This was particularly evident in Europe, where there was an unrelenting, steady stream of press coverage across online publications claiming that Threads had implemented ActivityPub and federated with the Fediverse—claims that were simply untrue! While it was true outside Europe, those articles were being written in Italian, Polish, German, and Greek!

As I state in my article:

> Threads adopted a highly unscrupulous approach: not only did it effectively segregate its users, but it also maliciously peddled the idea of ​​federation everywhere. Here in Europe—where they had already decided against actual federation—they distributed false press releases (dutifully picked up by the worst online outlets) claiming they were opening up to the Fediverse. They tried to treat the audience receptive to the Fediverse concept like a herd to be milked, using the very idea of ​​the Fediverse as a buzzword to steal visibility from our own projects. Threads is, for all intents and purposes, a hostile presence that must be contained; we should avoid extremism, certainly, but we must also maintain a firm stance.

This diversion of attention away from the Fediverse has caused severe damage to the entire European Fediverse movement!

Threads e la federazione con il fediverso libero

Ormai è chiaro che abbiamo sopravvalutato il temuto rischio principale della federazione con Threads: lo tsunami che avrebbe invaso le timeline delle nostre…

informapirata (www.informapirata.it)

Nice article, thank you! Fairly early after launch many on the #fediverse were like "ROFL Threads failed already". I have a different opinion.

TL;DR Meta had different strategic goals, and Threads was a resounding success.

#Threads wasn't announced with the same fanfare as Metaverse before, and Pervert Glasses or Muse today, where The Zuck was hauled into the marketing mix to make a clumsy weirdo appearance. Fedi was never a threat to Meta, but should it become so, they are now prepared. Or when another platform, perhaps #Bluesky, becomes a threat.

#EU regulations + politics may have played a role, as @laurenshof alluded to at the time. But Threads was proof that Meta could quickly build production-ready services on the Instagram tech stack to compete in the market. They testdrove a new agile engineering culture.

Building Meta’s Threads App (Real-World Engineering Challenges)

The Threads app was downloaded by more than 100M people on launch week. How did the engineering team build the app, and handle an unexpectedly intense launch? Exclusive.

(newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com)

Should Meta decide to go all-in there's little defense in fedi's chaotic grassroots ecosystem to stave off an eventual EEE.