In a move sparking concerns about platform competition, Meta appeared to be blocking links to Pixelfed, a decentralized photo-sharing platform. Users reported that posts containing links to “pixelfed.social” were deleted, with Meta citing a violation of their “Community Standards on spam” as justification.
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However, upon inquiry, a Meta spokesperson acknowledged the deletions as a mistake and confirmed the reinstatement of the blocked links.
Pixelfed operates on the ActivityPub protocol, allowing for interoperability with other platforms within the fediverse, a decentralized network of social media services. Similar to Instagram, Pixelfed enables users to share, like, and comment on photos. However, due to ActivityPub, posts can potentially appear across various apps or be easily transferred to entirely new photo-sharing platforms. Interestingly, Meta itself is partially adopting ActivityPub in its Threads feature, allowing for simultaneous posting to Threads and Mastodon.
The timing of these deletions raised eyebrows, coinciding with Meta’s recently announced changes to its content moderation policies. These changes include ending the third-party fact-checking program and revising the Hateful Conduct policy. Based on reporting by Wired, the revised policy appears to permit content that would traditionally be considered hateful.
This policy shift, coupled with the blocking of Pixelfed links, led some to speculate that Meta might be proactively suppressing potential competitors, similar to past actions by another unnamed platform (X) that blocked links to Mastodon and Substack.
While the link blocking appears to be a misstep by Meta, it highlights the ongoing debate about platform competition and potential anti-competitive practices within the social media landscape.