1 yr. ago • 75%

You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon

www.theverge.com You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon

It could prove to be an important move from Meta.

On my Threads profile, I changed my featured link to be my Mastodon profile URL.

Then, on my Mastodon profile, I changed one of the featured links to be my Threads profile URL.

After I saved that change, my Mastodon profile showed a green verification checkmark next to my Threads profile URL. Success!

TechNews @radiation.party [VERGE] You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon

33 comments

A lot of people are on the Fediverse to escape these corporate data-hoarder apps. It’s so weird to still see people embracing the abusers. It’s like we’ve learned nothing.

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- No we've learned, but some people just don't care.
  
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- fr
  
  Reddit Exodus: "reddit is being corporate and shitty and greedy, time to bounce"
  
  Facebook shows up: "oh, let's let them; in fact, we should be happy that they're coming to the fediverse! only good things can come from this"
  
  like it's as if y'all forgot the thing that just happened; why are you all so quick to give the corporation that only cares for money a chance
  
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Thanks for sharing the info as I’m sure there will be a few folks to jump on this. Personally, I don’t want anywhere near this.

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So it begins

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- Embrace
  
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  Extend
  
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- What’s the problem like? Before I do something stupid…
  
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  Ask yourself this: why have you come to the Fediverse in the first place?
  
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  Nothing, a lot of people are just really antsy about Threads "invading" Mastodon in some EmbraceExtendExtinguish approach.
  
  Which could happen, but also ignores the reality that it's basically just not worth their effort. Assuming they can grow big, they're so big they no longer care, and just do AP support as a lulz for the programmers. In fact this 'too big to even take notice' is a far bigger problem for Meta than Mastodon (specifically) ever could be as it makes them easy to blindside.
  
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This is the first and second step in the EEE cycle. They are embracing Mastodon by allowing instances to connect to theirs, and they are extending it by providing a verification service for all Mastodon users - a service which is conveniently dependent on Meta as a centralized authority. Eventually every celebrity will rely on Meta to get verified and Meta will use this to extinguish independent Mastodon instances.

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- This isn't entirely true. Verification on Mastodon isn't verifying your account for a shiny badge, it's verifying ownership of sites that you link on your profile. If you add a link to a website, and that website links back to your profile, Mastodon will show that one link as verified. But that link needs a special rel="me" attribute to count for verification, which is what Threads now supports.
  
  I am absolutely sure Threads is an attempt at EEE, but this specific feature is a good thing imo. I'd love to see more sites support rel=me links for simple cross-platform account (ownership) verification
  
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- Permanently Deleted
  
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But....why?

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- To invade a network, they do not control and to steal, abuse and sell more non-user data.
  
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- Embrace Extend Extinguish
  
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Ok? But why?

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Oh God.

12
This is the best summary I could come up with:

But it also represents something bigger: an actual Threads feature from Meta that connects with decentralized social media.

I got this to work in just a few minutes on my Mastodon profile, meaning that a URL to my Threads account now has a green checkmark.

“We’ve also rolled out Threads support for rel=me links to help you verify your identity on platforms like Mastodon,” Mosseri said.

I’ll admit that I didn’t know what rel=me links were when I read Mosseri’s post, so I found a Mastodon support page that explained how they work.

If your eyes are glazing over reading all that, never fear: I found it was ultimately pretty straightforward to make my Mastodon account show a verified checkmark for my Threads profile.

But now that the company rolled out this verification feature that works on non-Threads platforms, I’m starting to believe that we’ll actually see ActivityPub support in Threads proper someday.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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- Tldr this isn't really anything new for Mastodon. If you link to a website in your profile, you could verify you own that website (or are a representative of it, ie writer for news or a blog) by having that site link back to your profile with a special rel="me" attribute. The new thing is that Threads now also supports these links, so linking your Threads account on your Mastodon account can show you have verified that you own that Threads account. This also works with any other site that supports rel=me links for verification.
  
  I agree with all y'all that Threads is EEE, but I think this particular feature is a really good thing and I'd love to see more sites implement this as a really simple way to cross-verify (ownership of) accounts
  
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Ugh. I hope that instances aggressively push back against this.

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- All they're doing is adding rel="me" to featured links on Threads account pages, I don't see what issue this creates tbh.
  
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- Permanently Deleted
  
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Ew. Where in facebook do you work?

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While I'm sure Threads as a whole is an attempt at EEE, I don't think this is that big a deal. In fact, I'd like to see every other site support it, too

As the article mentions, verification on Mastodon is just verifying ownership of some links in your profile (not the entire account), which just checks the target site for a special link back to your profile (specifically adding the rel="me" attribute to it). Now when you add a link to your Threads profile, if it sees a rel=me link pointing back your Threads profile, it will add the rel=me on its end as well. Following the steps in the article, Mastodon will then see the rel=me attribute on the link to your profile there, and show the link as verified, just the same as if it saw any other rel=me link on any other site. And any other site that supports link verification the same way will also now be able to verify ownership of your Threads profile.

Using rel=me links like this is a great simple way to cross-verify all your other accounts and websites without needing to sign in or authorize any access. Just point the two sites at each other and violà!

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This is kinds proof they want a pipeline of people moving from Mastodon to threads.

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Permanently Deleted

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SHIT SHIT

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Permanently Deleted

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- Because they want the content that only a huge platform can provide.
  
  You don't. That's fine. The beauty of the Fediverse is you can choose an instance whose policies you like. You do not have to demand that everyone else has exactly the same preferences as you do.
  
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