Meta reported to be working on a platform that will rival Twitter
On Friday, Meta, the owner of Facebook, works on a new “text sharing” social media network. This is viewed as a potential rival to the famed social media platform Twitter.
At this point, no major alternative to Twitter has emerged. This urges global leaders, politicians, celebrities, and companies to continue using the platform as a way to communicate with the public.
Following reports on news websites Platformer and India-based Moneycontrol, on Friday, Meta confirmed that it began to work on the said Twitter killer.
In a statement, Meta said, “We’re exploring a standalone, decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”
Reports say that Meta’s new app would use technology to allow it to be interoperable with niche network Mastodon and other platforms. This enables users to broadcast posts to people on other networks.
Also, this would be a prominent break from the usual practice by tech giants. In context, platforms are kept behind technological walls and operate using company servers under strict rules. Examples are Instagram and YouTube.
Mastodon runs from decentralized computing servers. They have no central management or authority calling the shots.
In December, Elon briefly banned Twitter accounts that provided links to other social media platforms. These include Facebook, Instagram, and Mastodon.
Moneycontrol reported that Meta’s new venture tests some features. Think of tappable links, user biographies, verification badges, and shareable images and videos.
In its latest glitch on Monday, Twitter suffered a brief but unprecedented outage. Users worldwide reported they could no longer read links to articles from outside websites. From an update to the platform, the company’s tech support account blamed the problem on “unintended consequences”.
After several rounds of layoffs with more than two-thirds of staff let go, Twitter is running on a skeleton staff. This allegedly leaves it vulnerable to outages as well as disinformation and harmful content.
Many advertisers backed off and the network saw its revenue and adjusted profit fall about 40 percent year-on-year in December. The Wall Street Journal reported this on Saturday, citing people close to the company.
