Threads users can now see who follows them from other fediverse servers

Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Tuesday that users who have connected their accounts to the fediverse, also known as the open social web, can now see who follows them and likes their posts from other fediverse servers, such as Mastodon and Pixelfed. 

The company also announced that users now have up to 15 minutes to make changes and edits to their posts on the social network. 

Users can tap on a post’s activity or their follower list to see the full list of followers and likes from other fediverse servers. You will have to click on a “fediverse followers” or “fediverse likes” section to view the lists.

The announcement comes as Threads has slowly been deepening its ties with the fediverse over the past several months after first letting users connect their accounts to the fediverse back in March. 

For instance, the company started letting users see fediverse replies on other people’s posts a few weeks ago, bringing more content into Threads. It’s worth noting that users have been able to see fediverse replies on their posts since June. Although Threads users can’t respond to replies from other servers, the Meta-owned company has said the feature is under development. 

Threads is the largest social network to adopt ActivityPub, which is the decentralized social networking protocol that connects the fediverse, as it reaches almost 200 million users, according to Meta. The fediverse itself has more than 12 million total users.

As for the increased time limit on editing posts, Threads is giving users quite a bit more time to change or edit posts, as users previously only had five minutes to do so. 

Mosseri noted that if you have connected your account to the fediverse, your Threads posts will be shared to the fediverse 15 later, after the edit window is closed. 

Threads first rolled out the ability to edit posts a year ago, and unlike on X (formerly Twitter), users don’t have to pay extra to access the feature. However, X does offer users a much longer time frame for editing posts, as users can do so for up to an hour after a post is shared.