Meta acknowledges having removed links to the decentralized competitor of Instagram, Pixelfed.

Meta seems to be blocking links to Pixelfed, a decentralized photo-sharing platform, on Facebook, according to some users on Bluesky and various reports. A small group of posts containing links to "pixelfed.social" was removed, citing Facebook's "Community Standards on Spam" as justification. When asked about this action, a Meta spokesperson stated that the removal of the posts was a mistake and that they would be restored to their original state.

Pixelfed operates under the ActivityPub protocol and is part of the broader "fediverse," a collection of decentralized publishing platforms. Its functionality is quite similar to that of Instagram, allowing users to share, like, and comment on images. However, since it is based on ActivityPub, the content you publish could appear on other applications or be transferred to different photo-sharing methods as you wish. Meta has begun gradually incorporating elements of ActivityPub into Threads, which facilitates simultaneous posting on Threads and Mastodon.

The timing of these removals raises suspicions. Recently, Meta announced significant changes to its approach to moderating speech on its platforms. The company decided to end its third-party fact-checking program and modify its Hate Conduct policy last week. These new rules allow for a type of speech that would typically be classified as hateful, according to what has been researched.

It is not far-fetched to think that users might consider migrating to an alternative like Pixelfed in response to these changes. In fact, last Saturday, the platform reported experiencing unprecedented levels of traffic on pixelfed.social. Furthermore, Meta's new stance could lead it to proactively block its competitors, similar to what X has done with links to Mastodon and Substack.