How to Disable Fediverse Sharing After Enabling It on Threads

You enabled Fediverse sharing on your Threads profile to let your public posts reach Mastodon and other ActivityPub servers. Now you want to turn that feature off — either because you no longer want cross-platform visibility or because you plan to make your account private. This setting is located inside your account preferences and takes effect immediately. This article explains exactly where to find the toggle, what happens when you disable it, and what limitations remain.

What Fediverse Sharing Does and Why You Might Disable It

Fediverse sharing is a feature that lets your public Threads posts appear on servers that use the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon, Pleroma, and Pixelfed. When you enable it, every new public post is automatically pushed to those servers. Users on those platforms can follow your Threads profile, like, reply, and repost your content without leaving their own app.

You might want to disable this feature for several reasons. You may have switched your account to private, which makes the Fediverse sharing option irrelevant because private posts are never shared. You might want to reduce your digital footprint or stop cross-platform replies from appearing on Threads. Some users disable it simply because they tested the feature and decided it does not fit their workflow.

Disabling the toggle does not delete any posts that were already shared. It only stops future public posts from being sent to ActivityPub servers. Existing followers on other platforms will still see your previously shared posts, and their interactions (replies, likes, boosts) remain visible on Threads.

Steps to Disable Fediverse Sharing in Threads

Follow these steps to turn off Fediverse sharing on the Threads mobile app. The setting is not available on the web version at this time.

1. Open the Threads app and go to your profile
   Tap your profile picture icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen. This opens your profile page where you see your posts, bio, and follower count.
2. Tap the two-line menu icon in the top-right corner
   This icon looks like two horizontal lines. It opens a menu with options such as Settings, Saved, and Activity.
3. Select Privacy from the menu
   Tap the Privacy option. This screen contains all account-level privacy controls including profile visibility, blocking, and Fediverse sharing.
4. Tap Fediverse sharing
   Scroll down until you see the Fediverse sharing entry. It is located near the bottom of the Privacy screen, below the Blocked profiles and Muted words sections.
5. Toggle the switch to Off
   The Fediverse sharing screen shows a single toggle switch. Tap it so the switch turns gray — this indicates the feature is disabled. The change takes effect immediately. No confirmation dialog appears.

After you toggle the setting off, any new public posts you create will not be sent to ActivityPub servers. Your existing posts that were already shared remain on those servers.

What Happens After You Disable Fediverse Sharing

Disabling Fediverse sharing has several immediate and long-term effects that you should understand before making the change.

Existing posts are not removed from other servers

Any public post you made while the feature was enabled has already been copied to Mastodon and other ActivityPub servers. Those copies are stored by administrators on those servers. Threads cannot force those servers to delete the content. If you want to remove a specific post from the Fediverse, you must delete the post from Threads entirely. Deleted Threads posts are also removed from ActivityPub servers through a standard deletion notification, but this process depends on the remote server honoring the request.

Followers from other platforms remain

Users on Mastodon and other servers who followed your Threads profile while Fediverse sharing was enabled will still show in your follower list. They can still view your public posts that were shared before you turned the feature off. They will not see any new posts. To remove those followers, you must block them individually from your Threads profile.

Replies from other platforms stay visible

Replies, likes, and reposts that came from ActivityPub users on your previously shared posts remain visible on those posts. Disabling the feature does not retroactively remove those interactions.

If You Want to Remove Fediverse Followers Completely

Disabling the toggle does not automatically remove followers from other ActivityPub servers. To clean up your follower list, you must block each Fediverse follower manually.

1. Go to your profile and tap your follower count
   This opens your full list of followers.
2. Find a follower whose profile name contains a domain
   Fediverse followers show their home server in their profile name, such as @user@mastodon.social. Look for the @domain part after the username.
3. Tap the three-dot menu next to their name and select Block
   This removes them from your followers and prevents them from seeing your future public posts. Repeat this for each Fediverse follower you want to remove.

Blocking a Fediverse follower does not delete their copies of your previously shared posts. It only stops them from seeing new content and removes them from your follower list.

Threads vs Bluesky: Federation Approach Compared

Item	Threads (ActivityPub)	Bluesky (AT Protocol)
Federation protocol	ActivityPub	AT Protocol
Default federation	Off — you must enable it	On — all public posts are federated
Disable federation	Toggle off in Privacy settings	No single toggle — use app passwords or custom feeds
Post recall after disable	Existing posts remain on remote servers	Existing posts remain on relay servers
Follower removal	Must block each follower manually	Must mute or block each user manually

Disabling Fediverse sharing on Threads is a straightforward process that stops future public posts from leaving the platform. Your existing shared content and Fediverse followers remain unless you take additional steps to delete posts or block users. If you later decide to re-enable the feature, simply follow the same path and toggle the switch back on — any new public posts will then be shared again.