Peter Cottle, Software Engineer at Threads, details how decentralized social helps solve “The Severance Problem” — uniting things like fan theories across platforms.

This clip is from the “Fediverse Corner” conversation moderated by David Imel, Co-Host of the Waveform Podcast, at the Fediverse House at SXSW 2025. Other panel participants included Mike Masnick, CEO and Founder, Techdirt, and Board of Directors, Bluesky, and Evan Prodromou, Co-author, ActivityPub and Research Director, Social Web Foundation.

We apologize for the sound quality of this recording. It was filmed under subpar conditions in Austin. However, we loved the conversation so much, we wanted to be sure to publish choice clips that contained meaningful insights. Thank you for bearing with us.

For more Fediverse House content (most of it with better sound quality), check out our PeerTube channel: https://flipboard.video/c/fediverse.house/videos

For more conversations about the social web, check out Flipboard CEO Mike McCue’s podcast, Dot Social: https://flipboard.video/c/dot_social/videos