1y ago

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

https://social.overheid.nl/@beheerder

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259 comments

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.
- Wow. Decentralization as a whole will be a game changer for all corners of media, science etc.
- Given how the fediverse is kinda like e-mail, this feels like a natural next step.
- That's a really great idea. It makes so much sense that it seems weird that it's not already the way things are done.
- I had the same exact thoughts when the first twitter migration happened. I doubt we will see it, but I can dream.
- Does CNN already own that domain?
  
  For some crazy reason they haven't snatched it up yet. Atleast a domain seller website is saying it is free for pickings, if you want it.
  Then again maybe their policy is to put everything as subdomain on cnn.com and make cnn.com their sole brand "if it's not on cnn.com, it's not that CNN". Still i would have though they defensive register all relevant TLDs, even if they never ever use them.
  
  I don't remember which pizza chain (or it has since been fixed) but something like papajohns.pizza used to redirect to dominos.com.
  
  I have no idea. That’s just an example.
  
  Ah, okay, it would make more sense to say something like social.cnn.com since they already own and use cnn.com.
- The only way they would do that is if they could monetize it somehow.
  
  It'd be another method to drive traffic to their websites and gain more ad revenue. Same as maintaining a presence on twitter or facebook, or providing an RSS feed.
  
  Yeah totally.
  I had the thought that since Threads “doesn’t want politics” on their platform, and Twitter is trash, maaaaybe activity pub could be a thing.
  But you are right: they won’t do anything if it won’t make money.
  
  Isn't their entire strategy to fish people onto their site, make money that way? Twitter doesn't pay them either.
- Agreed, not sure how I feel about governments setting up their own servers, but news organizations definitely.
  
  How would you propose government officials officially distribute verified information? Just for government officials and distribution, that's the whole point of having a .gov domain is so you can know it's official
  
  Only employees can have an account on those servers. Registration is not open to the public.

259 comments