this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Fediverse

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[–] SGG 250 points 1 year ago (32 children)

I hope other governments, small and large, start doing this.

[–] [email protected] 186 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Germany (social.bund.de) and the EU (social.network.europa.eu) already have it. I think it's very likely that other governments, especially european ones, will start to do this.

With the internet being so dominated by american voices, I dont think a lot of people have fully appreciated the sentiment change in the higher levels of european governments. Sovereign control over their digital spaces is something that is actually mattering on the level of nation states. Its a way of thinking that is kind of new to most people, as we rarely think about the sovereign powers of nation states, and even less so in the context of the internet. But now were starting to do that again, and it actually matters.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

With the internet being so dominated by american voices, I dont think a lot of people have fully appreciated the sentiment change in the higher levels of european governments.

Absolutely. I was on an instance, run by North Americans, that had blocked European Govt instances because they didn’t trust government agencies spying on them etc. Some German users picked up on this and voiced a lot of frustration over it. There was a clear cultural divide. Even more ironic, I think it was the German department of privacy or something to that effect.

Nonetheless, it was quite interesting to see a tension between the small hacker aspect of the fediverse and the “this is the new internet” aspect and how much the US dominated perspective probably completely missed the mark.

EDIT: European Govt from “European” to clarify I was referring to government run instances.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (8 children)

ha yeah I remember that, that was fun.

To riff on this a little bit further: its also visible in how little attention in the gazillion conversations about Threads is paid to the fact that the entirety of the EU cannot even access it yet due to the new DMA and DSA.

Or one of the articles I wrote that got relatively low traction, that was specificially about how all of the Nordic countries got an official recommendation to use ActivityPub for their governmental communications. I dont mind that some articles get less traction than others, but it does stand out when you consider how impactful such things are for the long term structure of the fediverse. Lots of EU governments are now talking about needing sovereign public digital spaces, and are actively looking how ActivityPub can help with that. And that matters way more than whatever Elons latest shenanigans are.

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[–] quink 24 points 1 year ago

ARD and ZDF too, probably just as significant because they're some of the biggest media organisations in the world: https://ard.social/explore and https://zdf.social/about

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[–] [email protected] 130 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is great. This is how it always should have been.

Organization of any kind needs a Twitter page or subreddit? No, they need their own official, self-controlled Mastodon instance anyone can see and listen to and interact with, even without accounts on that specific instance. They need their own kbin or Lemmy instance to make and administer their community on and have control over, everyone can still participate even without signing up for accounts on that specific instance.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (5 children)

You don’t see governments or companies using gmail, now do you. Well, small unprofessional companies do, but everyone else has a domain, website, mail server and all the usual internet infrastructure in place. Why should companies and governments use TweetBook or Snapstargram for official communication when they can host their own instance. For the time being, the problem has been that large majority of the people are using these unstable platforms, so companies decided to follow.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Eh, lots of companies use gmail it's just masked by being their own domain and part of g suite.

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[–] [email protected] 121 points 1 year ago (6 children)

They've done a lot of stupid things lately, but this isn't one of them.

Governments should be using open platforms and open source software.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago

Absolutely! Using open source software is much cheaper, as well. Hiring developers to work on open source software/OSs would cost less than buying software annually. Governments pay stupid amounts of money for easily replaceable software.

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[–] garretble 107 points 1 year ago (16 children)

This is great.

I really wish more news sites set up their own instances. At the start I realize they wouldn’t be getting as many eyeballs, but it seems to make a lot of sense to have a @[email protected] or something. Then Wolf could have @[email protected].

Instant “verification” that way, too.

But we’ll see.

[–] CodeMonkeyDance 34 points 1 year ago

Wow. Decentralization as a whole will be a game changer for all corners of media, science etc.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

Given how the fediverse is kinda like e-mail, this feels like a natural next step.

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[–] blue_zephyr 98 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That's actually hilarious because the coalition of ruling parties of the Netherlands was so unstable that it fell apart today.

[–] [email protected] 81 points 1 year ago

Oh dang, our government has fallen and I first read about it on Lemmy. It’s official, this is my social medium now.

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[–] Nerrad 92 points 1 year ago

Its super important that Government info NOT be hidden behind paywalls, forced log-ins or even CloudFlare puzzles. People need to be able to freely click through to the official information.

[–] [email protected] 88 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Imagine a world where every government has its own instance.

"Breaking News: North Korea has defederated from the United States, as well as hundreds of other countries."

[–] zuhayr 49 points 1 year ago (5 children)

"The Russian federation defederated Ukraine."

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

i'll take country defederation dramas over the shit we have now any day.

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[–] Boiglenoight 68 points 1 year ago

Excellent use case.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago

This actually makes a lot of sense and I am surprised that there isn't a lot of government already doing it. That and celebrities. It's basically instant verification.

[–] Toldry 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not many governments would have enough tech-savy people to even think of opening a Mastadon instance. Kudos NL and Germany!

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

a lot of government has one, they're just not paid enough

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[–] Rooty 54 points 1 year ago (12 children)

The fact that a state government used a commercial service to inform the public is absurd, and this was bound to happen eventually.

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[–] Redonkulation 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is really fascinating to me. It would be interesting to see each country set up their own Mastodon/Lemmy/Kbin/other federated systems and have those instances constantly talk to each other. Like others have commented, It seems like a great way to keep the communication style and interaction of twitter/facebook, while also protecting the validity of the information through private instances. Really smart decision.

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[–] cerevant 48 points 1 year ago

This is the way. Government, Businesses, Celebrities and News organizations should be hosting their own social media presence. They shouldn’t be beholden to corporate interests to regulate their communications. This also breaks the cycle of exclusive content that causes lock-in. Wins for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago

Exciting to see this happening. More governments should do this.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol that’s awesome! I didn’t think governments would start doing that so quickly.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Didn't the EU do the same shortly after Space Karen bought Twitter? I believe I saw an article around the time I started my Mastodon account.

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[–] Epicurus0319 24 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Good, other governments should be doing this. (But even if they use threads instead, mastodon users’ll see their updates anyway if mastodon feds with it)

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