Dutch government starts own Mastodon instance as reaction to the instability of Twitter

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

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.

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.

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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 @news@cnn.social or something. Then Wolf could have @Wolf.Blitzer@cnn.social.

Instant “verification” that way, too.

But we’ll see.

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

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.

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."

Excellent use case.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

in the future:

"Ireland.ir and Scot.land has defederated from the England.UK.gov. The Prime minister will be addressing his Instance shortly"

Incredible! Are they the first government entity to do so?

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

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.

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)

Can wait to see mass adoption of fediverse over other countries to provide updates

All governments, large NGOs, and news orgs should do this. Maybe there should be a "mastodon in a box" which is a simplified containerized version of the service which makes it easy to set up and secure.

https://www.overheid.nl/english

Overheid.nl is the central access point to all information about government organisations of the Netherlands.

I would love US governments / states to start their own instance on the fediverse. Talk about explosive growth to this community.

Can't wait for it to be overrun by germans.

Can I follow that from Lemmy?

This is brilliant. I hope we see more countries doing the same thing :)

Maybe they could make accounts be tied to residency or citizenship, and perhaps have communities that only allow posting to those accounts to reduce bot spam and foreign meddling. Maybe that's a terrible idea, but it will be interesting to see where this goes, and if activity pub will be sufficient or need extending.

Damn a government that actually do something in terms of digitilization.

Cries in German …

Please note that this server does not accept refugees from Twitter and the admins will collapse if you ask them too.

One of the best parts of this - especially if the trend continues - is that it makes the "Extinguish" part of a possible "Embrace, Expand, Extinguish" attack by Meta's Threads more difficult.

Cutting off access to a bunch of tiny self-hosted private instances won't even ping on their radar. But cutting off federation with official government platforms? That's different.

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UK government has been taken over by WhatsApp and Twitter - our official inquiries have to beg for access to WhatsApp to see what's going on in gov. Love to see them switch - they could have more control of data retention and promote innovation.

Poggers

wait i thought they don't have a government at the moment

I want to see Canada next!

Great news!

Italy will follow soon 🤥

Working link: https://social.overheid.nl/@beheerder/110684642686045200

"This instance has been technically up and running since Friday, July 7, but not yet officially in use. Please be patient

The instance will contain the accounts of government agencies and will not currently accommodate individual officials."

translated by google translate.

Probably a poor decision to be creating accounts on government operated instances. Since they own the server, they're in a position to:

Siphon credentials and attempt reuse to gain access to distinct services
Ban individual accounts
Censor based on post content

I'm all for government support and adoption of open-source software so long as they're not in the position to disrupt how it's used by the public at large.

Edit (my perspective is relevant, but doesn't apply in this case): My nerd impulses outran my willingness to read the link's content. Seems it's not for public registration.

Edit 2: Like my cornbread eating American ass can read Dutch anyway 🤣

Damn, sometimes I'm proud of our government .. until you realize its just a bunch of fuckups in one room!

Wow, I never thought about this, but this is probably pretty good to have right? Might be a good way to find info about something if their sites are really confusing etc possibly