Instagram’s new app has been revealed as its owner Meta gears up to release it this summer.

In a direct challenge to Twitter, the text-based service will allow you to share posts using your existing Instagram credentials.

Now, one of the people secretly testing it out, has leaked the best look yet at the upcoming platform. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) professor Lia Haberman tweeted a promotional image of the app, featuring screenshots of its Twitter-like design and information about its functionality. The new platform, codenamed “Barcelona”, could be available as soon as the end of June, Haberman said on her blog.

Based on the images, the new service will let you share text, pics, videos and links that other users can interact with through replies, likes and shares. It will also carry over many of the privacy controls offered on Instagram proper, including accounts you’ve blocked and settings that dictate who can engage with your posts.

So far, it all seems uncannily similar to Twitter. However, the app will reportedly set itself apart from its main rival by offering a decentralised social network. In the leak, Meta says the new service will be compatible with other social platforms, including Twitter competitor Mastodon. For general users, this could result in more followers, an aspect that should be welcomed by influencers and celebrities.

As previous reports have stated, the app will also allow users to create individual, independent servers (or rooms) organised around specific themes, topics or interests, with the ability to message others across this sprawling network of forums.

These groups could set their own community standards, theoretically giving users more say and autonomy over their servers, instead of them being monitored by Meta. However, as the latest leak reveals, users will have to adhere to Instagram’s community guidelines.

Meta confirmed the existence of the app in March. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralised social network for sharing text updates,” the company said. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”

The new app will be able to do all this by using the same decentralised social network protocol as Mastodon, the briefly hot platform that some Twitter users jumped ship to after Elon Musk’s takeover.

However, it remains to be seen if Meta can make decentralised social networking work. The buzz around Mastodon has notably died down in recent months, with some users initially complaining that the service was difficult to navigate. The biggest sticking point for newcomers is that it can be hard to find other people to follow across its vast network of servers.

But, similar community-oriented services already exist, though the biggest of them all is not decentralised: namely, Reddit. On this, users join and interact with communities around a range of topics, which span everything from mainstream subjects such as politics to niche interests such as backyard chickens. Most of these are overseen by volunteer moderators.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is also prepping a decentralised social network called Bluesky that looks like a Twitter clone.

So why is Meta bothering? After all, it already owns multiple apps that have billions of users, including Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp.

Simply put, it probably sees an opportunity to grab some of the users alienated by the changes being implemented by Musk at Twitter. The entrepreneur is locking previously free features behind a subscription; threatening to take away blue checkmarks from existing verified users including journalists who are among the most prolific tweeters on the app; and probably turning off others with his divisive politics.

A decentralised social network would also allow Meta to skirt some of the regulatory issues that have plagued it over the past decade, including questions about its monopoly over social media and digital advertising.

What’s more, Meta already has plenty of high-profile Instagram users that may relish the chance to create their own servers. It’s easy to see how celebrities, brands and influencers could use the text-based service to share updates with their fans and foster stronger communities.

In some ways, Instagram is already heading down this path. This year, the app introduced its disappearing notes feature, which lets you share text-based messages with your friends. It also recently launched Broadcast Channels, which let creators message their fans with news updates and behind-the-scenes moments using text, photo, video, voice notes and polls.

Instagram made subscriber chats widely available in 2022, allowing creators to share messages with people who pay for subscriptions to exclusive content.