Fediverse Sharing: Cross-Platform Interaction Dynamics between Threads and Mastodon Users

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jeong, Ujun, Beigi, Alimohammad, Tahir, Anique, Tang, Susan Xu, Bernard, H. Russell, Liu, Huan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918093386678272
author Jeong, Ujun
Beigi, Alimohammad
Tahir, Anique
Tang, Susan Xu
Bernard, H. Russell
Liu, Huan
author_facet Jeong, Ujun
Beigi, Alimohammad
Tahir, Anique
Tang, Susan Xu
Bernard, H. Russell
Liu, Huan
contents Traditional social media platforms, once envisioned as digital town squares, now face growing criticism over corporate control, content moderation, and privacy concerns. Events such as Twitter's acquisition (now X) and major policy changes have pushed users toward alternative platforms like Mastodon and Threads. However, this diversification has led to user dispersion and fragmented discussions across the walled gardens of social media platforms. To address these issues, federation protocols like ActivityPub have been adopted, with Mastodon leading efforts to build decentralized yet interconnected networks. In March 2024, Threads joined this federation by introducing its Fediverse Sharing service, which enables interactions such as posts, replies, and likes between Threads and Mastodon users as if on a unified platform. Building on this development, we study the interactions between 20,000+ Threads users and 20,000+ Mastodon users over a ten-month period. Our work lays the foundation for research on cross-platform interactions and federation-driven platform integration.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_17926
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fediverse Sharing: Cross-Platform Interaction Dynamics between Threads and Mastodon Users
Jeong, Ujun
Beigi, Alimohammad
Tahir, Anique
Tang, Susan Xu
Bernard, H. Russell
Liu, Huan
Social and Information Networks
Computers and Society
Traditional social media platforms, once envisioned as digital town squares, now face growing criticism over corporate control, content moderation, and privacy concerns. Events such as Twitter's acquisition (now X) and major policy changes have pushed users toward alternative platforms like Mastodon and Threads. However, this diversification has led to user dispersion and fragmented discussions across the walled gardens of social media platforms. To address these issues, federation protocols like ActivityPub have been adopted, with Mastodon leading efforts to build decentralized yet interconnected networks. In March 2024, Threads joined this federation by introducing its Fediverse Sharing service, which enables interactions such as posts, replies, and likes between Threads and Mastodon users as if on a unified platform. Building on this development, we study the interactions between 20,000+ Threads users and 20,000+ Mastodon users over a ten-month period. Our work lays the foundation for research on cross-platform interactions and federation-driven platform integration.
title Fediverse Sharing: Cross-Platform Interaction Dynamics between Threads and Mastodon Users
topic Social and Information Networks
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.17926